2 hr & 2 min,
color, 2012
Crazy
meets crazy! A young man named Pat
(Bradley Cooper) just released from a mental institution where he has resided
for eight months, self-deluded into supposing that the wife who long ago left
him is just waiting with bated breath for his release and for their
reconciliation, gets tangled up with a young woman named Tiffany (Jennifer
Lawrence, this year’s Oscar winner for Best Actress) recently widowed and fired
from her job, who is herself threatening to self-destruct. Pat has been released into the care of his
dysfunctional parents (Robert Deniro and Jacki Weaver, and what a terrific pair
they are!) and placed under a restraining order by the court. (Yes, he has been a bit felonious too!) It sounds like anything but a match made in
heaven, unless heaven has become an oddball dealer in high stakes long
shots. All who look for pearls of wisdom
in the unlikeliest and most outlandish of places will want to saddle up for
this bumpy ride. The movie deserves its
plaudits. It is easily the funniest
picture out of 2012 that I have seen.
It could have been played for high tension drama, but you are not that
far into the action when you know already that you are meant to unwind and laugh
with it.
Rapid
fire and overlapping dialogue is sometimes difficult to follow in current
motion pictures; details and clues can get lost in the crossfire. But here is an example of how to use it
without alienating the slowest of us in the audience. The story is easy to follow and no time is
wasted on needless digressions. The
zigzagging plot never loses coherence.
While the lives of the characters are not very stable, the path charted
for them to follow remains firmly grounded in the issues they face, and each
moment of encounter carries echoes of subject matter which all sensitive
people, whatever their state of mind or circumstance, confront on a daily
basis. Communication! Listening!
Mutuality! The risk of honest
self-disclosure! The ownership and the
dumping of baggage! Forbearance! Forgiveness!
Loving compromise! Completion! Not that Pat and Tiffany and their immediate
families are enlightened experts on any of these factors. They are volatile and unpredictable, but they
have a way of stumbling into the right garden patch and challenging the best
and worst in each heart. They even
manage to surprise themselves at certain points.
This
is the third movie of Jennifer Lawrence’s that I have seen, and each time I
have been overpowered by her work. As I
pointed out in my review of “The Hunger Games” many months ago, “she knows exactly how to light each scene and each
close-up from within herself.” Especially is this true of
close-ups. When she looks straight to
camera or even in the camera’s direction, it is no exaggeration to say that she
“nails” me. How many actresses could
make magic out of an utterance like this one from Tiffany, coming on the heels
of an altercation with Pat over propriety:
“There’s always going to be a part of me that’s sloppy and dirty, but I
like that, with all the other parts of myself.
Can you say the same about yourself?
Can you forgive? Are you good at
that?”
I
get the feeling that Lawrence is not only submerged into the character she is
playing but that she could not possibly be anyone else, though I know this is
not true. She takes over both the stage
and the soul of the person, enters our minds and imaginations and grips the
heart as well. But at the same time she
creates perfect chemistry with anyone sharing the scene. In this case that individual is most often
Bradley Cooper, who gives us an unforgettable portrait of a neurotic hanging
onto his sanity by the tips of his fingers.
These two are simply marvelous.
They create so much between them that I almost did not want the film to
end, as noisy and impulsive and volatile as they are. In real life I would find them very
uncomfortable to associate with, but on the screen I can appreciate and enjoy
the fight that comes out of them and the strange sense they make.
And
the two of them are not bad dancers either.
She entices him into dance therapy and dance competition, and watching
him learning to coordinate his stiff body parts is a super pleasure. What threatens to shipwreck their plans,
however, is Pat’s father’s mania for sports betting and his superstitious
jabberwocky about “reading the signs.”
How that works out I will leave for you to learn and enjoy. I should add here that Deniro as Pat’s father
gives the best performance I have observed from him in years.
The
genius behind the film is its Director /Writer David O. Russell, having already
made a name for himself in recent years with such movies as “Three Kings” and
“The Fighter.” He has adapted a novel of
the same name by Matthew Quick. In some
directors’ hands the material may have left us feeling punched out, but Russell
makes it work. A word of caution,
however! The F word is liberally used,
so parental discretion is surely required.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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