After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. Things get more challenging when Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own.
The film is somewhat prone to those off-the-cuff deep-and-meaningful revelations that come so much more readily in US indie flicks than in, you know, life; but it manages to positively bleed compassion while remaining light, sexy, dynamic and thought-provoking.
Cooper and Lawrence have a nice, believable chemistry, and by the time they get to the dance competition it’s surprising how tense it is and much you are rooting for them.
This is cinema at its most alive, with frantic zooms and breakneck edits adding fizz to a genre that had long lost its sparkle.
The ending is a bust, but there’s a wealth of good stuff here.
This is a date movie that doesn't offer the sophistication it thinks it does, but is as enjoyable and good-natured as the genre requires.
Silver Linings Playbook is all things to all moviegoers. Please join the queues circling the blocks.
See it in the wrong mood and you might hate this film. But I have to say it sneaked through my defences.
The picture builds to a charming and funny climax that you can see coming without anticipating quite how it will play out. A feelgood film that doesn’t avoid life’s harsh realities, Silver Linings Playbook is heartwarming winter treat.
Lawrence is Silver Linings Playbook’s very own silver lining, the sole glittering element in a fug of cinematic flatulence.
A lot of the credit for this has to go to Lawrence and Cooper. Their attempts to out-crazy each other make their rapid-fire repartee feel like the back and forth of an old-fashioned screwball comedy duo.
Jennifer Lawrence is the standout in a tonally uneven, eccentric romantic dramedy that fuses The Fisher King with Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion.
Screwball comedy at its screwiest.
It's by and large an enjoyable play on the screwball comedy. However, it has the kind of ending that makes me want to throw it out of the nearest window.
Silver Linings Playbook isn't as audacious as it might have been in squeezing comedy out of desperate psychology, and it does finally imply that bipolarity can be cured by love and self-belief. But it's deliciously acted, smartly scripted, and Russell and cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi shunt the camera about so as to make a small story look like a big, brash, freewheeling one.
A hugely enjoyable film.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday February 15, 2013, until Thursday March 28, 2013. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/