{"id":23789,"date":"2012-12-27T05:36:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T12:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=23789"},"modified":"2012-12-31T13:44:17","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T20:44:17","slug":"silver-linings-playbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=23789","title":{"rendered":"Silver Linings Playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

David O. Russell has a thing with overstatement, it\u2019s fair to say. His films are often accentuated by the exaggerated and the improbable – the incest of Spank the Monkey<\/i>, the mega-heist of Three Kings<\/i>. This tendency spills over onto the other side of the camera, one gathers; on set bust-ups with George Clooney and Lily Tomlin (the latter, in full excruciating detail, can be viewed on YouTube) certainly suggest as much. Still, this isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. It\u2019ll be hard to accuse the director of lacking the passion needed to drive his craft.<\/p>\n

But this tendency can make his cinematic missteps all the more obvious. Take his new film, Silver Linings Playbook<\/i>. Its exaggerations shouldn\u2019t surprise; in fact, the larger than life characterisations and set up serve to underscore an interesting point \u2013 more on that in a moment. But there is a downside: deliberate or not, wilful overstatement can easily mask elaborate sleight of hand. Whilst one is distracted by the grandstanding, a multitude of\u00a0 cinematic evils take the opportunity to creep in undetected…<\/p>\n

Pat Jr.\u2019s undiagnosed bipolar disorder rips to the fore abruptly when he discovers his wife in flagrante<\/i> with a work colleague; the ensuing contretemps costs him his house, his job, his wife, pretty much his life. A spell in a mental health facility spares him a lengthy prison sentence, but discharge into the care of his elderly parents leaves him bereft of everything except the perhaps quixotic desire to win his wife back at all costs. Every setback can be overturned, Pat Jr. believes: every cloud has a silver lining.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bradley<\/a>
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook\/Image courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Pat Jr. as Pollyanna is just one segment of a deeply dysfunctional whole. His father, Pat Sr, is an American football obsessive \u2013 very much in the clinical sense \u2013 who relates to his son primarily as the good Ju-Ju that can urge his beloved Philadelphia Eagles on to victory. Best friend Ronnie escapes from the overwhelming emotional crush of a new baby and a domineering wife by hiding in the garage, listening to heavy metal. And then there\u2019s Tiffany, Ronnie\u2019s sister-in-law.<\/p>\n

Recently bereaved, Tiffany is direct, abrupt and deeply disconcerting. She also happens to be the only person willing to help Pat Jr. beat his restraining order to establish contact with his estranged wife. But in this topsy-turvy world, there is no such thing as a free lunch. They form an uneasy alliance: Tiffany will pass a letter on to Pat\u2019s estranged wife, if he\u00a0 agrees to partner her in a dance competition. Both parties seem to be getting something that they want: but it is a bit of a toss up, whom should be more concerned about receiving what they wish.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the unlikely partnership of Pat Jr. – played ably, and for much of the film against type, by Bradley Cooper – and Jennifer Lawrence\u2019s Tiffany does provide much food for thought. The two are both are damaged goods, both with remarkably skewered perspectives on life (the scene where Pat Jr. rages against the perfidy of Ernest Hemingway and his downbeat storytelling is just one excellent example). Their off-kilter engagement with life and the things that matter to them give an unexpectedly poignant insight into experience of mental ill health. The characters make one laugh, but they aren\u2019t played for laughs: this is an important distinction. Combined with jittery, juddering camerawork and unexpected changes of narrative pace, Russell starts to shape an interesting portrait of the emotionally unwell without succumbing to pathology.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s all about the overstatement.<\/p>\n

Beneath the bombast, Silver Lining Playbook<\/em> manages to add up to less than its constituent parts. It is unfair, granted, to castigate the film merely on the grounds of smuggling a rom-com storyline \u2013 an offbeat rom-com, admittedly, but still \u2013 under false pretences. After all, even the emotionally fragile are entitled to fall in love, and it soon becomes clear that Tiffany wants to be the third side of an extremely uneven love triangle. But the convoluted narrative device with which Russell – whose screenplay is adapted from Matthew Quick\u2019s 2008 novel – sets up the denouement stretches patience and credulity. The actors do their best with some pretty uneven material. Still sterling performances – Jacki Weaver\u2019s<\/a> turn as the harassed mother and wife obliged to play straight woman between the two Pats comes to mid \u2013 is offset by redundant roles fulfilled by bland acting-by-numbers (Chris Tucker, take a bow.)<\/p>\n

This not to say that Silver Linings Playbook<\/i> is a bad film, just a deeply unsatisfying one. The underlying sub-theme of masculine emasculation \u2013 frailties pushed by the prevailing economic recession, prompting the desperate grasp on slivers of certainty \u2013 comes across all the more strongly through its understatement, curiously enough. But all this is underdone by the grievous harm done to Tiffany through Russell\u2019s script and direction. Lawrence, just 22, is already an accomplished actress with a brilliant future ahead of her. Tiffany\u2019s histrionics don\u2019t do her any particular favours as an actress, but a competent turn reminds us of both her range and adaptability as an actress. But her character\u2019s presence \u2013 sneaky, self-centred and shamelessly manipulative \u2013 is ruthlessly sacrificed once the film remembers what it wants to be, which is harmless crowd-pleasing fluff. Ultimately, Silver Linings Playbook\u2019s<\/em> most egregious offence is playing safe when a bit of bombast and overstatement might have served it well.<\/p>\n

Silver Linings Playbook (USA, 122 min, 2012, English with Hebrew subtitles) – now showing in Israeli theatres.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David O. Russell has a thing with overstatement, it\u2019s fair to say. His films are often accentuated by the exaggerated and the improbable – the incest of Spank the Monkey, the mega-heist of Three Kings. This tendency spills over onto the other side of the camera, one gathers; on set bust-ups with George Clooney and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}