 |
| Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence stare you in the face to urge you to watch them in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook |
Back out in the world after nine months in a mental hospital, our young hero struggles with aggression and his bi-polar diagnosis, his somewhat similar, superstitious father and a stubborn belief that his cheating wife, who has a restraining order against him, wants him back.
Silver Linings Playbook is written and directed by David O. Russell's (Three Kings (1999)), based on the novel by Matthew Quick. It is a terrifically well-told story of mental deficiency, brought to real-life troubles, and how meeting a similar soul may still hold real promises. There are star-making performances from Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, both charming gifts to the silver screen. They dance to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash's Girl From the North Country, after SPOILER Lawrence has told Cooper how her husband died. There is some truth to these, the best scenes of Playbook, which also builds up to a dance competition climax that is quite thrilling.
Robert De Niro (Casino (1997)) has one of his best turns in years as Cooper's bookmaking father, and no doubt part of the film's mass appeal is its clever usage of the sports mania/gambling plot line. Chris Tucker is amusing as a patient friend of Cooper's. Though he 'movies it up' at times here, he's also a master at getting us into the mindset of a bipolar person's experience, and he serves one of the most entertaining and lovable stories on-screen of the year in Silver Linings Playbook.
Budget: 21 mil. $
Box office: 236.4 mil. $
= Huge hit
What do you think about Silver Linings Playbook?
And Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar-win?
No comments:
Post a Comment