Warm, humane movie deals smartly with tough issue

Movies about mental illness are often tricky. The human mind and how it functions (and how it malfunctions) is a deep and continuously unfolding mystery, even in these more enlightened days. Films that portray those who are mentally ill -- even ones with the best of intentions -- often end up focusing on (and even exploiting to some degree) the fall-out from an outburst without dealing with the build-up to it, or noticing that there are people who must live with both parts.

"Silver Linings Playbook" succeeds where a lot of those other films fail. Screenwriter and director David O. Russell's adaptation of the Matthew Quick novel is a warm and humane comic drama that doesn't sugarcoat, go for cruel laughs or demonize, but deals rather frankly and fairly with people whose lives have been directly affected by the pains of an illness that knows how to hide itself.

In the first minutes of the Oscar-nominated film, we meet Pat Solitano, Jr., played by Bradley Cooper. He's being released from a Baltimore mental hospital 8 months after a violent incident in the home he had shared with his wife, Nikki. The judge in his case has put him in the custody of his parents back in Philadelphia (Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver), and as long as he behaves himself, he won't be going back to Baltimore.

Pat wants to make it right with Nikki, get back into her life. The pills the doctors want him to take, they make him feel not like himself, so he doesn't take them. Instead, he's been working out, getting himself in shape, like she always wanted him to do. He goes to therapy and talks bluntly about the pain he's caused to those he cares about. He's even going to read the books Nikki has assigned to her students. He wonders if maybe he can get his teaching job back, too.

The stress of daily life seems to get the best of Pat, however. As a man living with a previously undiagnosed bipolar disorder, he doesn't quite know how to avoid saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or keep his temper from escalating to the point that he's throwing punches and breaking things. That's why Pat ended up in a mental hospital, that's why the people who love him -- including his bookmaking Eagles fan father, Pat Sr., and long-suffering mother, Dolores -- walk on egg shells whenever he's in the room, and that's why Nikki has a restraining order against him. But Pat has a plan, and he believes that if he follows it, good things will happen.

That's when life decides to throw a curveball Pat's way. A well-to-do friend invites him over for dinner one night, and there he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), the attractive dark-haired younger sister of the friend's blonde wife. She's sharp-minded and razor-tongued. She's also a widow. A nervous Pat can't help himself: "How did Tommy die?" he asks, and more than once.

In the middle of an increasingly uncomfortable get-together, Tiffany announces to the table that she's done with dinner, and asks-slash-demands that Pat walk her home. When they stop outside the place she lives, she propositions him. Clearly conflicted, he explains to her (and possibly to himself) that he's married, he's staying faithful to the woman he loves, he's got a plan to win her back. She slugs him and runs inside.

This isn't the last time he'll see this mercurial girl; no, whenever he goes out on his daily run, she ambushes him. He tries to outrun her, go down different paths, lose her along the way. He fails every time, so he finally does the last thing he can think of: he asks her out.

After a near-disastrous dinner at a neighborhood diner (Pat orders raisin bran so that she won't think it's a date), Tiffany offers him the opportunity to reconnect with his estranged wife. But there's a catch -- he has to partner with her for an open-class dance competition. Even though he has his doubts, the carrot she has dangled is too tempting.

So he gives in. Even though Pat's parents are beginning to exert pressure on him to stay home with them, he promises that he'll dance with her in the contest.

How all of this turns out I will not spoil, but I will say that the resolution is genuinely satisfying. To be sure, there are a lot of plates spinning in this plot, but Russell and his cast keep them moving without seeming to break a sweat. The story doesn't submit to easy answers or clichés. The characters created by Cooper, DeNiro, Lawrence and Weaver, along with the others in this movie, are compelling and real. (The named quartet are all Oscar nominees in the acting categories, and deservedly so. DeNiro, in particular, hasn't been this good in anything in at least a decade.) Several scenes -- particularly an early one where Pat spirals from humorous babbling to delirious panic to violent rage to horrified grief -- are textbook examples of how all the elements of film can be brought together to create something special and memorable. And to tell you the truth, that's how I'd describe the movie as a whole. Four stars (out of four).

Content advisory: "Silver Linings Playbook" is rated R for language and some sexual content/nudity. The nude scenes are fairly brief, and most of the sexual content is of an implied nature -- there's nothing too graphic here. There are also a few violent sequences in the film (including one where blood is shed) that could be upsetting to some viewers.