Silver Linings Playbook

I'm going to be harsh and lean towards a lower rating, because as a whole this film didn't quite make the best impression on me. In terms of the acting there’s nothing to fault, but in terms of content it's pretty empty. I was bored at times, then the rush of emotions made my head spin. The only thing I really liked were the dance scenes. 3.5 stars. (28/08/2013)

Based on the responses from abroad, Silver Linings Playbook looked like one of the most attractive of this year’s Oscar contenders, unfortunately though, I wasn’t really sold on it. The messy web of relationships of a bunch of weird, crazy and neurotic characters, lead by Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper (both of whom I consider very talented young actors), didn’t win my heart. If I look at it positively, it’s still some nice brisk fun, but nothing more than that. Emotionally, the film missed me by a wide margin, to the point that I’m not even sure when I was supposed to feel any emotions, because the relationship between the main characters happens as if by the way, especially on the part of Cooper. They meet, they argue, they dance and boom. Chris Tucker is insufferable. 7/10 (14/01/2013)

Who is crazy? And who is normal? I rather feel that the crazy person is in all of us, the question is, what, who and how activates it. In this movie Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper activated it before the story began and I see only the therapy. I have to say, it was really nice to watch. Especially Jennifer Lawrence and especially when she was twisting during the dancing. Nevertheless, I really have to admit that I haven’t seen such unique romantic movie in a really long time. Properly crazy, honestly funny and realistic in the way only life can be. (08/05/2014)

A wonderfully tasteful affair, at times almost "P.T. Andersonian" in terms of the power of identifying with the characters emotionally/psychologically. It may seem that the more insane the characters you create in the script, the more intense the final impression will be from a certain point of view, and the overall structure of Silver Linings Playbook encourages this in its own way. However, it struck me more as a kind of sweet, sensitive, and sometimes harsh story (harsh only in terms of the emotions transferred to the viewer) about people who to be sure are "different" in certain ways (we even have tons of charts, names of diseases, and various medications for them), but it is through this "otherness" that a "normal" non-bipolar person can observe that even your average lunatic can be much more perceptive, sensitive, and insightful in many other ways than those who, according to the charts, are not officially crazy. Here I can nicely pick up on what David O. Russell was (in my opinion) really trying to say with this film – namely, that when a normal person has some strong excess in behavior or thinking, it is almost always very difficult to get them to renounce and erase something that was/is important to them, even if it was the source of future psychic disturbance. I really liked how David O. Russell demonstrated through the supporting characters that the more mentally and morally deranged may very well be the officially "normal" people whose completely tactless and boorish behavior bring down and humiliate the officially "abnormal" individuals. Silver Linings Playbook is not a film that glorifies crazy people or a film that presents emotionally vulnerable and unbalanced people as beings who are superior in their humanity to the officially "normal" ones. Silver Linings Playbook is the story of the gradual coming together of two terribly shattered human souls whose loved ones cannot help them (and if they try, they only do so very convulsively and stiffly) and instead try foolishly, but certainly with good intentions, to keep them apart. This is a superbly acted, directed and, above all, sensitively made film that is, in the purest sense of the word, a madcap romance that ultimately warms the heart beautifully in the space of two hours. And Jennifer Lawrence may not be a textbook beauty like Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, or Megan Fox, but she exudes such an aura that I would quickly fall in love with her (and with me she wouldn't even have to crawl on all fours). (03/03/2013)

An excellent actors’ film. The Oscar hype may be exaggerated in this case, and the story offers no memorable authorial ideas, but it's a heavy-handed feel-good film with beautifully drawn characters that, for me, represents one of the most honest depictions of an ordinary American family in recent years. Where authenticity commits suicide, it's fully supported by the palpable chemistry between Bradley and the divine Jennifer, which (the chemistry) had me glued to my seat, and who (Jennifer) stirred my remaining teenage hormones and left no doubt that she was more deserving of an Oscar than any actress not named Meryl Streep. It’s a pure caricature, as is usual with O. Russel, but it’s funny and, judging by the enthusiastic reception, obviously good. (29/03/2013)