Film review: This 'Playbook' has many Silver Linings

Film: Silver Linings Playbook (A)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher
Rating: ****
Director: David O Russell

What happens when a young lady, grieving the loss of her husband, meets a guy who’s as good as dead to his wife? A sweet and charming life-affirming story if you are willing not to be judgmental about the certain ailments they suffer from. You see, the guy, Patrizio Solitano (Cooper), is a manic depressive with a bloody past and the girl Tiffany (Lawrence) has her fair share of baggage as well.

Before Lawrence comes along and gives a spell-binding performance, Silver Linings Playbook’s most striking feature is it’s the cinematography. DoP Masanobu Takayanagi camerawork is fluid, appropriately splashy when Solitano loses his grip with reality.

While the story takes a definite turn for the cloying later on, the seamless manner where it switches back and forth from the domain of quirky light-hearted comedy and probing – occasionally upsetting - emotional drama is ingenious.

The sincere Cooper is convincing as a man, fresh out of a mental health institution, determined to keep a chin up but is still clutching onto the most powerful delusion of all –his wife still having feelings for him and that he can win her back. There to gently remind him of the restraining order is Kher, playing Pat’s therapist Dr Cliff Patel. While Kher puts up a serviceable performance, he doesn’t prove to be the quiet scene stealer his character was written to be.

De Niro is ace as Pat Sr, the gambling father whose watered-down neurotic tendencies his son has inherited. A heavy weight like him always brings something to the table while Lawrence, may not have the years on her side, is captivatingly good.

With it message of acceptance, carpe diem, Silver Linings Playbook dissolves into a concoction that might be too sugary for some (sugar being the key ingredient in any Romantic Comedy worth its salt), whose parts are better than the sum. (Possible spoiler ahead) The film, in that sense, seems to absorb some of the characteristics of its protagonist who, in a bid to win back his high school literature teacher wife, picks up A Farewell to Arms, to fling it out of a window because he will not countenance an unhappy ending.

But apart from this, the performances and unerring visual grammar are some reasons why the film is one of the best of 2012 and should not be missed.