Things to do in dance class when you’re nuts

Silver Linings Playbook
DIRECTED BY: David O Russell
STARRING: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro
CERT: 15A

 

Director David O Russell has some fine films to his credit, most notably the Gulf War drama Three Kings and his 2010 Oscar-winning boxing flick, The Fighter. Silver Linings Playbook doesn’t quite match that quality, a bit too lightweight for the big league. But it’s a fairly entertaining addition to a good CV.

Based on the novel by Matthew Quick, it stars Bradley Cooper as Pat, a man with a few serious issues. He’s just been released from a mental institution, where he spent eight months after almost beating a man to death. Pat cracked up after catching his wife and this gentleman in the shower. While I wouldn’t want to go around condoning violence, I would say that going a bit mad in this situation is quite a normal reaction.

On his release from the hospital, Pat moves in with his parents, Pat Sr and Dolores (De Niro and Jacki Weaver), under orders to keep taking his medicine. Which he probably does need, all things considered. He has a tendency to yak incessantly at the speed of light and he’s prone to the bit of rage – roaring his head off when he can’t find his wedding video and throwing books through the window when he doesn’t like the ending. And he loses his mind altogether whenever he hears My Cherie Amour by Stevie Wonder – but, again, I would suggest that this is perfectly normal behaviour.

Perhaps the clearest sign that poor Pat is a bit touched is that he truly believes his wife is still in love with him and that he’ll get her back. There’s the small problem of a barring order but his shining optimism won’t be dimmed by such minor details. There’s also the fact that he wears a bin liner while jogging, not usually the best move for attracting the attention of your ex, unless perhaps you want her to call an ambulance.

It does, however, bring him across Tiffany’s path. Tiffany (Lawrence) is a young widow, a fellow troubled soul, dealing with loss and depression in her own destructive way. The two bond over dinner, while comparing medications, the kind of fine scene you don’t see in your average rom-com.

Turns out this Tiffany is closely tied to Pat’s beloved ex-wife and she gets on board with his obsession to win her heart again – on the condition that he agrees to be her partner in a dance competition. You don’t need to be a genius to know where that’s going.

Silver Linings Playbook can be hard to like at times. Bradley Cooper is a decent actor and he gives a very strong performance here for the most part but there are scenes where he overplays his disturbed character, making it difficult to sympathise with the unfortunate man’s plight. And there are numerous other occasions when the film just gets too cute and quirky for the sake of it, the age-old crime of the independent filmmaker.

That said, it has a lot going for it. The writing is very sharp, there’s some great dialogue thrown back and forth and Jennifer Lawrence shows a knack for comedy that we haven’t seen before – I suppose because there wasn’t much to laugh about in Winter’s Bone and The Hunger Games, though the latter was comical for its own reasons.

There’s also Robert De Niro as Pat’s father, a man whose obsessive behaviour may well be linked to his son’s. Pat Sr is fanatical about the Philadelphia Eagles and up to his neck in a betting scheme driven largely by his superstitions. It’s the kind of role De Niro should do more of and the great man is in very good form. He has one emotional encounter we might have lived without and there’s a father-son fight that’s going fine until it’s broken up by a cop who acts like no other policeman in the universe, outside of a Flann O’Brien book. But that’s hardly De Niro’s fault.

Jacki Weaver does nicely as the meek wife and mother, though she gets saddled with some of the more kooky material. Anupam Kher is excellent as Pat’s blunt therapist and Chris Tucker makes an entertaining appearance as Pat’s concerned fellow patient, Danny.

It’s all a bit light for a film that deals with mental illness but there’s enough good stuff to make it worth the watch.

Gambit
DIRECTED BY: Michael Hoffman
STARRING: Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman
CERT: 12A
If Gambit is anything, it’s proof that the great ones have their bad days too. Either that, or the greats should think twice before handing off their work to lesser mortals.

The film is being flogged as a Coen brothers creation and the lads did indeed write the script. Whether they were in particularly bad form or director Michael Hoffman completely missed the point, Gambit is a hideous beast, a throwback to the days when the Carry On films were the height of comedy.

Colin Firth is Harry Deane, an art expert under the cosh of his billionaire boss Shabandar (Rickman), the rudest man in history. Harry plans to get one over on the big git, roping in an accomplice known as The Major (Tom Courtenay) to con Shabandar into buying a forged Monet. He also recruits a Texan chicken plucker named PJ (Diaz), who moonlights as a rodeo star.

I’m sure there had to be some laughs in there somewhere but they’ve been lost along the way, replaced by slapstick nonsense and the broadest of old British humour, not excluding the odd borderline racist gag at the expense of some Asian gentlemen.

Yes, it’s that clever. Or not.