Movie Review: ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ – The Best Movie This Year Came Out Last Year

01/28/2013 11:00 am by

SLP01 Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook The Best Movie This Year Came Out Last Year

Shut. Up. About. Peeta.

I went in to the theater to see Silver Linings Playbook this weekend, but hadn’t planned to write about it since it first came out in limited release in 2012.
But then I watched it.
Do you even KNOW how hard it is to get me to like Bradley Cooper? Or how difficult it is for Robert DeNiro to earn back some of the respect I lost for him in this, The Age of Fockers? But Silver Linings Playbook manages to do these things, easily. I haven’t felt this good about DeNiro since Midnight Run. Plus, Jennifer Lawrence reaffirms my belief that I CAN fall in love with crazy people if they touch my heart in a special way. Because her character is batshit, and we are very deeply in love according to all the pretend people I talk to all day,  who aren’t my therapist. That guy is sooo out to break us up.
The best thing about the movie is that it comes at you from funny angles. No one behaves how they are supposed to. There are a moments throughout the film where you are genuinely wondering if this thing is a comedy or a drama or a period piece set in modern times, or avant garde, French experimental cinema that ends with a “Fin” placard*,  or what? It’s not very often we get to go to movies that are “comedies” and feel genuine concern and empathy for the characters. Usually it’s all “Oh that Adam Sandler! What a cut-up** !”. But not in Silver Linings Playbook. You worry for these characters and you so want them to figure things out for themselves. Probably because they feel like real people and not wacky sitcom versions of real people. No one is going to solve any of their problems in Silver Linings Playbook by dressing up in drag as a fat British Nanny. They fight and argue and laugh and cry and make you want to stay with them just a little while longer to make sure they end up okay.
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Did you see “Little Fockers”?

The performances were simply riveting. Bradley Cooper, he of All About Steve and The A-Team fame, packs a serious dramatic punch I never would have seen coming. So it’s a sucker punch and I still hate him because he fights dirty. At least Jennifer Lawrence kinda gave us a head’s up with Winter’s Bone. I knew she was good, which was totally validated last night when she took home the Screen Actor’s Guild Best Actress Award for THIS MOVIE.
But in seriousness, it’s Cooper that steals the show. He drags you down to a visceral level where you can see and touch and smell his crazy. When he casts his eyes wildly about trying to figure out if he’s delusional,  he brings all the audience along with him. There are no quiet, reflective moments in this movie. All the characters are frantic with their own agendas and in applying pressures to meet their needs.  Robert DeNiro is back in top form here as well. That’s a sentence I’ve been waiting to write since “Analyze This” came out. He’s that lovable unstable father figure that we all wish desperately we weren’t related to.  Jacki Weaver as the Mom shouldn’t be overlooked either — she plays her role  with a perfect subtly, quietly exerting her will over her family. And of course, who could forget that this movie marks the return of Chris Tucker, in his quietest role ever. Not that it was QUIET…just quiet for him. Like if you dropped an armful of china into a rock crusher that would be quieter than an explosion. So not super-quiet, is my point.
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Yeah. Seriously. We’re in love.

So this is me, telling you all about the movie I wasn’t going to tell you about. It’s that good. It would have been irresponsible of me to not tell you to go see this film. And God knows I’m all about responsibility.  (*Kicks can-opener and can of cat food in cat’s general direction. Takes nap*)
*To be fair I never REALLY thought it was French or avant garde.  It’s too enjoyable to be either.
**Adam Sandler is NOT a cut-up. Any similarity to funny people living or deceased is purely coincidental and probably involves a fart joke.
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About Kurt Specht

Kurt, after a lengthy hiatus that was supposed to be about "finding himself" but ending up being about "finding the best local burrito," is back to fill your day with wonder and delight.

Filed Under: Comedy, Jennifer Lawrence, Movies, Theater Tagged With: , , , , , , ,


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  • http://www.josetteplank.com/ Josette Plank

    Great review! I can’t wait to see this movie!

  • http://www.facebook.com/walter.fish.92 Walter Fish

    I’ll agree that SLP was a great movie but I’m not sure if I’d put it before some other strong ones, Django, Argo and Lincoln especially. You touched on one of my concerns, that it seems to lack some sort of strong identity within a genre. And though despite strong performances from Bradley Cooper and J Lawl, it didn’t hook me because it felt almost like it wasn’t sure it could, like it lacked the confidence to be one type of movie or another. For example, if you look at the clips they released for it (http://www.ranker.com/list/silver-linings-playbook-movie-quotes/movie-and-tv-quotes has all of them collected in one spot), they seem sort of disjointed in my opinion. The moments are funny but not funny enough to keep me laughing and others are serious, touching, but not serious enough to make me want to root for any character in particular. You want to root for them all but not enough to really care. Am I making sense? Anyway, I AM interested in which one will take home the Oscar since that seems like a complete toss-up at the moment.

  • Annabelle Archer

    I deeply loved this movie for all the reasons you shared. My only complaint and disagreement with you is that I felt it was a little to formulaic and rom/com overall. It was a little too neat/cute in parts. While I hate stupid, pointless endings (Magnolia) I do feel like it could have been told with a little more edge but still taken us to the same conclusion.
    Also, she’s mine. Back off.

  • MollyGMartin

    See, I liked it. A lot. I didn’t love it. And now I know how all of you felt the year that I lurrrrrrrrved ‘The Descendants.’ :)

  • LBH

    I just saw this today and I think one of the reasons I liked it so much is that I was expecting NOT to like it at all and I totally, totally fell in love with it. I never thought I would laugh so hard at two mentally ill people in a ballroom dance competition, but there you go..