Date Night Movie Review - Silver Linings Playbook

Myne and I were reviewing the movies that we'd watched since the start of 2012, and we realised that there weren't that many comedies in the list. There's a reason - we like comedies where the humour is sharp, intelligent and natural, but unfortunately, there haven't been that many of those kinds of comedies.

So when I heard that one; Silver Linings Playbook had received rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, and two, it was a comedy, I immediately put it on my must-watch list, and when it came out, we went to watch it.

It turns out that there was a difference between what I expected and what I got. I had been expecting a more hilarious movie - maybe like a comedy of errors. But it turned out more to be a moving drama with many humorous moments, which was a difference that I didn't mind.

The story is about Pat, a man who suffers a mental breakdown after discovering his wife cheating on him - an event which exposes the fact that he had been struggling with bipolar disorder for a while. After being checked out of the mental health facility he was incarcerated in, he tries to pick up the pieces of his life again, and through a series of events, he meets Tiffany, a girl with her own fair share of baggage who gets him to participate with her in a dancing competition.

Like I said, the drama was very moving - Bradley Cooper did a great job in showing Pat's manic energy and upbeat attitude, as well as the deep scars he still carries from his wife's infidelity. I also felt for Tiffany (played by the Hunger Game's Jennifer Lawrence) who is struggling to deal with the loss of her husband and masks her pain with a brash don't-care attitude.

There was this scene I liked, where Pat defends Tiffany in the face of offensive remarks about her, not knowing that she is actually listening to his defence. It's events like these that sweetly set up the stage for a relationship to develop between them, even though Pat is still determined to get back together with his wife.

But it wasn't just moving drama - there were laughs too. Pat's dad was hilarious as this football fan who has all kinds of weird superstitions about what makes his team win or lose. And Chris Tucker plays a role of a fellow inmate and friend of Pat's who keeps on escaping from the mental health facility on one technicality or other. It was bits like these, along with the sympathetic portayal of people who have mental health problems, the optimistic tone and the very delightful ending that made me give the film four stars.

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Atala