He handles it well, but even better is Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany Maxwell, the intense, feisty young widow with whom Pat’s well-meaning friends keep trying to set him up, in an effort to help him move on from his ex. The movie’s version of “meeting cute” is that Tiffany too suffers from a mental disorder: garden-variety depression, sans mania. She acts out her low self-esteem via compulsive promiscuity, but Pat wants nothing to do with a sexual relationship because he’s fixated on being faithful to the spouse who is no longer interested. He does, however, see Tiffany as a potential way around his ex-wife’s Order of Protection. Tiffany offers him a deal: She’ll deliver his contraband letter if he’ll train with her for a local dance competition in which she has long dreamed of participating.
The fluff kicks in when we are asked to believe that these two “crazies” were made for each other; but each subverts the inevitable often enough, and in not-overly-predictable ways, that we don’t mind being taken along for the ride. Add Silver Linings Playbook to the list of vehicles in which Lawrence – truly the Girl on Fire since her Oscar-nominated success in Winter’s Bone – continues to build her reputation as one of Hollywood’s most talented younger actresses. You can practically see the steam coming out of her ears as Tiffany tries to channel her exasperation with the flighty Pat. But she simultaneously conveys an undercurrent of strategic intelligence that gets its big reveal toward the end of the movie when she confronts Pat’s father’s disapproval of her. For all her lapses into self-sabotage, her resentment at being treated like a bimbo is well-founded.
Yes, it’s ultimately a rom/com, but Silver Linings Playbook works on a couple of different levels. It takes us from seeing Pat’s irrationality as aberrant behavior to a much larger overview of the irrationality that is intrinsic to such near-universal social constructs as sports fandom and the family itself. We learn early on that Pat is not the only wacko in his blue-collar Philadelphia clan: His father – a bookie and fervent Eagles fan who is trying to win a big enough bet to open a Philly cheese steak shop – clearly has obsessive/compulsive disorder. He aligns his multiple TV remote controls at a very precise angle, freaks out if a single envelope is missing from his “study” and adheres to a multitude of superstitious behaviors to make sure that his team wins (a behavior pattern that the observant Tiffany eventually exploits brilliantly).
Pat, Sr.’s family and friends have learned to live with his quirks, as they are learning – with a bit more difficulty – to live with Pat, Jr.’s. And that pretty much sets the theme for the whole movie: Within a loving environment, people get to act oddly and provocatively sometimes, but are still valued for their unique contributions to the whole gestalt, and always forgiven. The toughest part, as Tiffany reminds Pat, is learning to forgive yourself.
De Niro has a classic De Niro role here as the tough, gruff Dad. His dramatic high point is a scene where he actually has to get teary-eyed as he tries to explain to his distracted son that his insistence on them watching football games on TV together is really more about wanting to bond than about his ritualistic belief that his son’s presence is essential to every Eagles victory. Of course, everyone expects De Niro to be great in any movie; it’s Jacki Weaver who’s the real discovery here, as Pat’s sweetly conniving Mom. She disappears into the American blue-collar Italian housewife role so thoroughly that you’d never guess that the actress is actually Australian.
Also very satisfying among the ensemble cast are John Ortiz as Pat’s frazzled best pal Ronnie; Anupam Kher as his psychotherapist Dr. Patel, who actually has a believable life outside his practice; and Dash Mihok as the long-suffering cop who keeps having to nudge Pat back into compliance with the terms of his release from custody. Especially fun is Chris Tucker as the wily Danny, the “jailhouse lawyer” who keeps dreaming up new technicalities to excuse his escapes from the mental hospital where he first became friends with Pat.
The blue-collar suburban settings, furnishings and costumes are spot-on. And Danny Elfman’s bouncy score keeps things light and moving along, even when the dark side of bipolar disorder is front and center. It all adds up to a successful effort on Russell’s part to pull together many strands of flakiness into a mostly lovable whole whose shortcomings can be easily forgiven.
