David O Russell (2012)
About halfway through the film a father asks his bipolar son, ‘What are you so up about?’ The son replies, ‘I’m happy. Isn’t that good?’ This question might equally be put to the director David O Russell, who also wrote the screenplay for Silver Linings Playbook, adapted from a novel of the same name by Matthew Quick. And Russell’s answer might be the same as his protagonist’s. Given Pat Solitano Jr’s psychological condition – at the start of the picture, he returns to the family home in Baltimore after eight months in a mental health facility – there would be an obvious logic to varying the movie’s tone and tempo but it’s hyped up almost all the time. Russell, on the evidence of this and his previous film, isn’t interested in subtlety. He directed Christian Bale and Melissa Leo to give attention-getting, Oscar-winning performances in The Fighter (and he may have repeated the trick here with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro – although, to be fair to them, their playing is much more nuanced). Russell knows how to work an audience and many people evidently enjoy the experience. Filling Screen 6 at the Red Lion Street Odeon doesn’t mean a box- office smash but it’s pretty unusual and the laughter during Silver Linings Playbook was nearly continuous.
Although he’s in his mid-fifites, Russell is attuned to what younger audiences in particular want: sustained dynamism. Because you’re so conscious of his undeniably successful attempts to deliver this, everything else in Russell’s movies feels subordinate to it. Pat Jr (Bradley Cooper) entered the mental hospital after a violent attack on his wife’s lover (all three of them were teachers at the same school). In the early stages of Silver Linings Playbook, however, Pat Jr and a man he got to know and like in the clinic (Chris Tucker) are presented as cooler than the people around them who are apparently better adjusted. Appearances can be deceptive, though, and as the story unfolds, the coolness spreads. Pat Solitano Sr (De Niro) – who’s earning money as a bookmaker in order that he can open a restaurant – is a rampant case of OCD when he’s supporting the Philadelphia Eagles. Pat Jr meets Tiffany (Lawrence), the sister-in-law of his friend Ronnie (John Ortiz), who’s recently lost her husband and her job. Pat Jr reluctantly agrees to partner her in a dance competition in exchange for Tiffany’s offer to deliver a conciliatory letter to Pat’s estranged wife, Nikki. The convolutions and climax of Silver Linings Playbook are par for the rom-com course although the dance competition is enjoyable and it’s a good joke that the adored Nikki (Brea Bee) turns out to be very dreary. I understand why the film is doing so well yet part of me wishes that it wasn’t.
Jennifer Lawrence’s vocal range and wit in this role take you by surprise. Her interpretation of Tiffany goes some way beyond kookiness – she’s sometimes alarmingly eccentric. Robert De Niro’s fine perfomance risks being overrated simply because it’s a relief for him to be in a hit (other than the Meet the Parents/Fockers series). I think the last time I saw De Niro in a movie when it first came out was in Jackie Brown, fifteen years ago. From the start here, when Pat Jr comes home and his father embraces him, De Niro shows he’s not lost his ability to change, instantly and completely, the temperature of a scene. He’s also advantaged by Russell’s giving him some moments that stand out against the prevailing hyperactivity of Silver Linings Playbook – as when Pat Sr is reduced to quiet tears or, especially, when he’s impressed by Tiffany’s argument that she’s a fortunate influence on the Eagles’ results. It’s also good to see De Niro looking so trim more than thirty years after Raging Bull. Bradley Cooper is likeable and conscientious at Pat Jr – his relative lack of variety works for him (as it does for Jacki Weaver as the long-suffering, loving mother-wife of the two Pats). Cooper’s repetitiveness contradicts Pat Jr’s bipolarity, makes him somehow more constant.
25 November 2012
