...wherein Cockatoo settled down in our plush velvet chair and felt a twinge of guilt for being too cowardly to see "Django Unchained". Maybe next week. Nevermind. The film we did see, Silver Lining Playbook, had an off-beat charm, and if the mentally ill ever decide to run a public service campaign toward destigmatization they certainly could not find a more photogenic pair for the posters than Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Both Mr. Cooper and Ms. Lawrence were nominated for Academy Awards and, on the surface, this film about kooky characters and family dynamics seems like Oscar-bait in the extreme. (There's even the de rigeur Public Big Event.) But we think it's richer than that.
Cooper's character Pat is released from a psychiatric hospital, his plea-bargain sentence in lieu of jail for assaulting his wife's boyfriend. He's bi-polar, and in the film this is expressed by a tendency to wake up in the wee hours jabbering to his parents, Robert DeNiro and Jackie Weaver (also nominated). Annoying, yet not so bad, but there's also the problem with flashback-induced edginess. Pat thinks if he can just exercise enough, cleanse his system of the meds, and force himself to be "normal" and attentive enough, he can win back his wife, Nikki.
He's invited to dinner, and his friend's wife's sister Tiffany is there. Recently widowed she sees right through Pat's attempt at normalcy and asks him, "What meds are you on?" She knows all about them, having mental health issues herself. Pat sees her as a possible conduit to his ex-wife and agrees to help her out with a project, a sort of hometown dance competition.
There is something quite lovely yet heartbreaking about watching these two practicing their moves - trying to concentrate, trying to help each other. One needn't have a diagnosed mental illness to have days where one thinks, If I can just hold it together then maybe, maybe it will all work out.
DeNiro of course if marvelous, and made the audience laugh when he went off on somebody with a GoodFellas-style threat. Ms. Lawrence was quite good, especially in two scenes: One, where she lets Cooper have it for thinking she's crazier than he is, and Two, where she fearlessly goes mano-a-mano with the great DeNIro. Perhaps she's too young to be scared of him.
There, we've reviewed the film. (We would just add, parenthetically, how helpful it is for the characters in the film to have families with resources and houses and a kindly, sympathetic police officer on their shoulders. How many poor, unappealing, unlucky [and non-white?] bi-polar people are on Main Street tonight, trying to find a bit of curb on which to stretch our their sleeping bags?)
Recommend.
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