Silver Linnings Playbook (2012)

This is the movie for which Jennifer Lawrence won her Oscar, and I think she probably deserved it, she's a great actress, a beautiful woman, and has an unusually strong presence on screen, were talking just short of Richard Harris levels so astounding for someone so young. Lawrence actually plays the secondary character in the film, not introduced until 20 or so minutes in, Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow who has dealt with her grief by having sexual relations with a lot of people. She meets the films male lead at a dinner set up by her sister (Julia Stiles) and brother-in-law (John Oritz), Pat Solatano, Jr. (Bradley Cooper) was a high school history teacher, who after walking in on his wife (also a teacher) in the midst of a tryst with another teacher, beats said other teacher quite severely. As a result of this he ends up in a plea-bargain arrangement where he spends eight months in a Maryland psych hospital, before being released to the custody of his parents (Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver) in Philadelphia. Pat Jr. is still obsessed over his wife (who has a restraining order against him) and convinced the he can somehow save his doomed marriage. Tiffany, who through her sister can gain access to Pat's wife, agrees to slip her a letter from Pat, which he's been desperate to get her but can't because of the restraining order, on the condition that he be her partner in dance competition she intends on entering, and the story goes from there.

Based on a book by YA novelist Matthew Quick, Silver Linings also won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and is near perfectly directed by David O. Russell, with an all around excellent cast including Shea Whigham (a character actor I've grown to quite like) and Chris Tucker who I can actually stand in this. De Niro has an important storyline here as a man who is as obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles as his son is with his wife. I have no qualms in saying that this is a great movie, totally got me, satisfying on every level, and I highly recommend. I will be keeping an eye out on nearly everybody involved in this thing, I just loved it.  ****