Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, 2012)

[mfunk9786]

Trailer



Seeing this one tonight, it's opening the Philadelphia Film Festival. It was shot in my hometown of Ridley Park, PA, right outside of the city - so it's going to be a completely bizarre experience for me to see Robert DeNiro, Jennifer Lawrence, etc tool around places I'm extremely familiar with.

Figured this already had a thread - it'll get one eventually as it's the new David O. Russell, so I'm doing the dirty work now. Russell is doing a Q&A after the film, so I'll pass along any nuggets about his future projects, etc if there are any.

I must say, the trailer has me wondering how this film has been so beloved to this point - it doesn't look bad by any stretch, but it's sort of disjointed and seems very broad - and the dancing [sub?]plot comes out of nowhere. It's gotten tons of accolades at other festivals though, so we shall see how it goes!

[CSM126]

It seemed interesting until "Directed by David O.Russell". I wonder how many times he gave Jennifer Lawrence the Lily Tomlin/I Heart Huckabees treatment to get the "right" performance.

[mfunk9786]

I never knew that CSM126 was Lily Tomlin.

[Matt]

Jen Yamato: A lot was made a few years back when video of your on-set conflict with David O. Russell hit the Internet. Whatever happened after that? Was it strange to see that even surface in public?

Lily Tomlin: Nothing! Well, the thing didn't come out on the Internet for about four years. So of course, David and I were friends and 20 minutes later we were back shooting. You know, we had two big fights. So whoever filmed it and got their hands on that video... I was doing an interview with a Miami paper that morning and they said, "How do you feel about the video on YouTube?" I said, "Well, what is it?" [Laughs] He said, blah, blah, blah, and I said, "Oh... I've never seen it, but I've heard about it." It made the rounds of the agencies in L.A. all through that time, and this was before YouTube got huge. You just didn't think about it because it was nothing anyway, it was just temper. We just both had a bad temper fit. I said, "Well, I haven't seen it. But which one are you talking about, the one in the office or the one in the car?" [Laughs] Because in the office I'm kind of stoic, part of the time. I said, "What can I say? I did it, they're right in black and white if you want to see it." I can't deny it, it's true. It's kind of a relief. You can see it now and they'll just know that I'm not the paragon of virtue.

JY: So there were no hard feelings afterward. I'd imagine that happens a lot more often than people realize, since cameras aren't on everyone all the time and certainly footage doesn't escape to the Internet.

LT: It happens sometimes -- but David is a very mercurial person, and that's part of why he's so brilliant. He almost reflects the movie. I did two movies with him, and I Heart Huckabees was so crazy, so all over the place, I think he kind of embodies intuitively whatever he's trying to make happen. It was just crazy, crazy stuff. We were always doing something, and then we'd get manic and crazy and I just flipped out on him. Then he flipped out on me. And you know, stuff goes on. But it's nothing. It's like family. If you have a big fight in your family, usually it's treated that way on the set. We don't want to misbehave; believe me, it's embarrassing. It's humiliating, you know? Because you just lose it. You act like a crazy person. [Laughs] But I adore David. I adore him as a talent. A lot of my friends said, "Well, you won't work with him again." I said, "Of course I would! I adore him, I love him. He's brilliant."

Read More at: http://movieline.com/2011/11/03/a-lifet ... n=referral" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mfunk9786]

Scandalous!

[domino harvey]

By all accounts the Best Actress Oscar already has Jennifer Lawrence's name engraved upon it, should be worth seeing for her if nothing else. Also, if you have yet to experience her excellent "I don't give a shit about being famous" flippancy in interviews, treat yourself. She expertly channels Robert Mitchum's droll bemusal at their improbable fame.

[mfunk9786]

And her workout outfit during the dance rehearsal scene(s)?! This is my Magic Mike

[Jeff]

It seemed interesting until "Directed by David O.Russell". I wonder how many times he gave Jennifer Lawrence the Lily Tomlin/I Heart Huckabees treatment to get the "right" performance.

You'll want to avoid Hitchcock, Preminger, DeMille, et. al. then too.

[mfunk9786]

And throw any copies of The Shining that you may have in the nearest bonfire, because it is pure evil.

[matrixschmatrix]

I do always wonder where the pressures lie when an actor (or more prominently an actress) is treated like garbage on set, has a horrible time, and later looks back with pride at the artistic achievement- it seems as though it would just fuck your career over to allow yourself to be angry over what happened in the course of shooting a universally acknowledged masterpiece. Still makes me feel a little queasy, overall.

[mfunk9786]

Did I just wake up in a universe where I Heart Huckabees is a universally acknowledged masterpiece?

[knives]

I wish.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, I was thinking of The Shining, but Huckabees is beloved by everyone I know that's actually seen it at least.

[mfunk9786]

Never have I seen a more aggravating film. I've seen a lot of worse films, but none of those were able to frustrate me to the level that I Heart Huckabees did. But that's another thread I suppose.

[Jeff]

But that's another thread I suppose.

This one!

[Grand Illusion]

Did I just wake up in a universe where I Heart Huckabees is a universally acknowledged masterpiece?

It's the best David O. Russell film. Up to you for what you consider that's worth.

I'm going to see Silver Linings Playbook tomorrow.

[warren oates]

I'll have to agree with Grand Illusion about Huckabees. Though I'd go even further and say it's not just David O. Russell's best film -- regardless of whatever douchery got him there -- but also one of the best of the decade and one of the very best films ever made about religion/philosophy (particularly key ideas in Buddhism and existentialism), especially in an American context. All of that and it's a genuinely funny contemporary take on the screwball comedy and one of the the most authentic and original Amer-Indie responses to 9/11. The scene where Mark Whalberg tells off the well-meaning Christian family would alone justify this film's existence if the rest of it weren't also so good.

[mfunk9786]

I don't really know what angle to approach this from. I am unabashedly in love with Silver Linings Playbook, but I have a bias that makes my opinion the sort of outlier that you should throw out before compiling all of your own thoughts. That's not to say that any of you will dislike it because you didn't grow up in the southeast suburbs of Philadelphia, where the film was shot, is set, and where I grew up - it's a real crowd-pleasing piece of work. But it's dripping with the soul of an area of the country that has uniquely few modern stories told about it. Mental illness and the relationships between broken, blue-collar people are at the core of this film, but it also manages to weave in a lyrical love story between Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper (both of whom - yes, both - are destined for Oscar nominations [I really think that Cooper can break into a pretty unshakeable five of Phoenix, Day-Lewis, Washington, Hopkins, and Hawkes, but don't ask me how]) that is the most standard sort of Hollywood stuff - but done so well that I cannot find a cynical part of me to complain about it. There are montages of the two practicing their dance routines that are astounding in their smooth, cool liquid rhythms - there is a lyricism to Russell's understated filmmaking that I can't put my finger on quite yet. This will all likely be brushed aside by many of you as too by-the-numbers inspirational Hollywood etc etc etc - but it's just so nice to see a blue-collar story that isn't about everyone's goddamn financial woes. These characters aren't looked down on - they're looked up to. These are the sorts of people who have earned themselves a film to call their own.

[Grand Illusion]

Well, after being obviously broken by the system after I <3 Huckabees, David O. Russell has completed his transformation to workmanlike middlebrow crowd-pleaser. Unlike The Fighter, though, Silver Linings Playbook actually works for me.

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence have an on-screen chemistry that make it hard to imagine other actors in the roles. It helps both actors that the (sometimes improvised) quippy dialogue is genuinely funny. Speaking of Lawrence, she's a force of nature in this film. She's hilarious and natural and spontaneous and steals pretty much every scene she's in.

Cooper holds his own nicely, but even Russell must know that the film suddenly begins to revolve around Lawrence. It'd be an interesting study to note just how much time she gets on screen in her scenes. I'd wager that she ends up in the edit more than even Cooper himself (at least in scenes where her character is present).

Speaking of the edit, if Russell is a workhorse, the edit is a racehorse. The film is very fast-paced, which is a mixed bag. For light entertainment, it certainly works. But there are also scenes where Cooper's character has high-stakes emotional moments, and those could've been allowed to breathe.

The football stuff doesn't really work, adding needless and undramatic complication to the climax of the film. The romantic comedy formulations add an air of inevitability about the whole film. And overall, the film will likely be forgotten by myself after a week or two.

That said, I laughed and enjoyed it while I was watching, and I'll at least remember Jennifer Lawrence's performance.

[Jeff]

Jennifer Lawrence's performance in Silver Linings Playbook is indeed one of my favorites this year, and she makes it look so effortless. Bradley Cooper, who I thought I did not like, is pretty great here too. The chemistry between the two is undeniable.

David O. Russell has always had a great ear for dialog, and he shows it off with his genuinely funny blue-collar Philly patois. I liked this much more than The Fighter, which is the film's closest analog in the Russell universe. It's incredibly predictable (dance contest silliness), and ultimately slight, but good fun.

[Brad]

I hearted Huckabees to death but this is DOR's best film. (Fighter--meh.) Simplistic, manipulative, whatever--there's nothing wrong with that if it's done this skillfully. And I don't particularly like Bradley Cooper or recent DeNiro so that's saying a lot.

[hearthesilence]

I had forgotten that Mark Wahlberg was originally cast in Cooper's part. I remembered that when his character has his first on-screen freakout - the tone and the way it was scripted reminded me of Wahlberg's character in I [Heart] Huckabees.

Slick stuff for sure - on paper, a lot of this stuff would look really bad, something from a TGIF sitcom, particularly the climax/ending. But Russell and the cast sell it, and this was surprisingly enjoyable. Jesus, Lawrence can get your heart thumping, but hormones aside, her performance really is good, I hope she takes more projects like this. I wasn't a fan of Winter's Bone, but I really liked her and Hawkes' performances - couldn't care less about X-Men: Origins and couldn't bring myself to see a tween adaptation like Hunger Games, but it would be great to see her meet and exceed everyone's expectations for years to come.

[mfunk9786]

Jesus, Lawrence can get your heart thumping, but hormones aside,

I'm glad it's not only me. I explained this to my wife as her looking very "fertile" (at my peril; because she quotes me on this to friends, relatives, and strangers) - but there's definitely something instinctual that happens when I look at Jennifer Lawrence that I can't explain without getting into National Geographic terminology.

[mfunk9786]

Slant's predictably cranky and totally disingenuous one-star review

It's one thing to dislike a film - it's another thing to accuse it of sins that it didn't commit. Chris Tucker's character, while awkwardly placed in the film's world to be sure, is so far from a 'token black character' that it makes me wonder whether Calum Marsh even saw the film. (cue Google Alert... now!)

[Brianruns10]

Actually I think Slant lays out a pretty cogent critique of the film. I think their writing on cinema is some of the best around. They have the toughest, most discerning standards, and they're some of the few critics around willing to call out faux-indie, Oscar baiting pabulum for what it is.