Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook, the new film from director David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings, The Fighter) is the kind of flick critics dig. The cast — Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver — is certainly solid. And the film has plenty going for it. It's a smart, often funny flick about two people who somehow click despite their deep differences. The story centers on Patrick (Cooper) has just been released from the mental hospital where he was undergoing treatment after he beat up the schoolteacher having an affair with his wife, Nikki (Brea Bee) Pat adopts the mantra that there's some kind of silver lining in every tragedy, and he tells his dad (DeNiro) and mom (Weaver) that he's transformed. Yet something about Russell's script, which he based on a Matthew Quick seriocomic novel, just doesn't ring true.