R, 122 minutes
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro
4/5 Stars

In Silver Linings Playbook, Cooper stars as Pat, a man who has recently been released from a mental hospital after suffering a mental breakdown when he caught his wife cheating on him with one of her coworkers. Pat goes back home to live with his OCD parents (DeNiro and Jackie Weaver) and tries to rebuild his marriage that he believes he can still fix. And then, he meets Tiffany (Lawrence.) She is crazy like him and she throws him into even more emotional turmoil.

You can almost understand why Pat had a nervous breakdown. Everyone around him seems to be as crazy as or crazier than him in their own unique ways. And the beauty about having all the other characters in the movie be at least mildly deranged is that you can relate to Pat. Cooper gives a stellar performance but I feel that Lawrence steals the show as the easily unhinged Tiffany. She definitely deserves all the Oscar buzz she’s been getting and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her, Cooper, and the picture get nods from the Academy.
The film is sweet, perfectly balancing comedy and drama and it keeps you guessing to what other crazy things might happen to Pat and Tiffany as the story unfolds. A lot of the movie is centered on football, usually coming from DeNiro’s character who is obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles, but this doesn’t distract the viewer. I personally hate football, but I didn’t feel I was bogged down with sports talk and passing of the old pig skin (actually, you never even see a football get thrown throughout the movie.) The best scenes in the movie are those between Cooper and Lawrence who have perfect chemistry together and show that being crazy, isn’t all that terrible. Silver Linings Playbook is going to get some gold.