Evie Totty: “It ruled.”
Well first of all, I hope Cooper's depiction of Bi-Polar is correct. If so, it helps me understand it more.
Secondly, Lawrence's character Tiffany - she reminds me of myself. A person who gives but can't quite ever say the right thing. Can't quite do the right thing. Can't quite get a hold of herself. I was transfixed.
This movie really hit me on a personal level (as you can tell)...
It was great though. I enjoyed seeing the characters ... heal. And they genuinely seemed like real people.
− January 12, 2013 • more by Evie • log in or register to reply
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Scott Hardie: “It ruled.”
I'll get this out of the way up front: I really didn't like the ending. I enjoyed it; it was happy, and I smiled and teared up. But it felt like a mismatch, like three-fourths of the film were a serious, careful, and more or less realistic treatment of some mentally ill and damaged people, and then in the last half-hour, they turned into pod people for a standard Hollywood happy ending. Yay! Good news everybody! Bipolar disorder is cured! All you need to do is place well in a big dance competition with your father's life savings hanging in the balance, and realize that your best friend is hotter than the estranged wife that you're pathologically incapable of letting go of! Even the minor characters metamorphosize, like the once stiff, professional-acting psychiatrist who starts hanging out at his patient's house to watch Eagles games, because I guess they're all friends now? This reminds me of Adaptation, except that movie took a hard turn into generic Hollywood mediocrity specifically to criticize lazy screenwriting. This one, I don't know what to make of it. I read somewhere that writer-director David O. Russell's son has OCD and bipolar disorder, which must have helped him get some of the movie's details right, but I wonder if and how that influenced the happy ending where mental illness is just sort of smiled away. Maybe this is the fantasy wish-fulfillment ending that he wants his son's life to have?
But I'm dwelling way too much on the ending, and it probably sounds like I hated the movie, when in fact I liked everything else about it. The acting was superb, so intense and focused. These are four well-deserved Oscar nominations, although Jacki Weaver's character could have used more screen time to better demonstrate how she enabled this crazy family dynamic. I don't know how much of the dialogue was scripted and how much was improvised, but either way I was impressed with the level of detail and passion in it. And it was funny! I saw this in a packed theater and the room erupted into laughter frequently, even at parts that were probably intended to be serious. Russell has a gift for manic dialogue, and for likeable characters desperately grappling with very specific disorders that are weirdly relatable. I need to see more of his work, and so does everyone.This review contains spoilers. Reveal it.
− January 17, 2013 • more by Scott • log in or register to reply
Evie Totty: Yeah, I was wondering how all of a sudden he was 'ok' too... and the age difference is troublesome (17 years).
But yeah the rest of it was awesome.This reply contains spoilers. Reveal it. − February 3, 2013 • more by Evie
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