Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

"Silver Linings Playbook" I would say is the best movie out this holiday season and there's tons of movies out.  I saw it by myself in the afternoon today.  It was long--Why are all movies out this season over two hours? But great all the way through.

I laughed out loud many many times, sometimes when no one else was laughing so it was probably a good thing my husband wasn't there.

It got 4 1/2 stars on Rotten Tomatoes.  Finally, Rotten Tomatoes, I concur!

I didn't go to this movie because of the stars.  Bradley Cooper and a girl half his age, are you kidding me?  But I kept reading great reviews...

I've seen Bradley Cooper in a lot of things including the first season of the tv show "Alias" (except "The Hangover" movies, I haven't seen those.)  And I really didn't think he was extraordinary until this movie where he gets to play a bipolar character with many layers of emotion named Pat.

Jennifer Lawrence, I didn't really get either before this movie and I have seen "The Hunger Games" but not "Winter's Bone," but she is good in this role as a crazy jogger/ dancer.

Everyone is talking about how great Robert Deniro is as Pat's football obsessed dad and he is.

It was hard for me to like the main character at first because he is pretty scary with his anger issues and his overzealous love for sports which I also find very scary though I am the same about certain rock bands.  But he won me over with his frankness and humor and his optimism--he always tries to look for "a silver lining."

My favorite part of the movie is how the main character decides to read his ex-wife's syllabus for her high school English classes and freaks out over the ending of "A Farewell to Arms."

My second favorite part of the movie was the scenes in the therapist's office.  What a great therapist!  The therapist, played by Anupam Kher handled Pat really well and calmly too.

This was a movie adaptation of the novel by Matthew Quick and I want to read the book now too.

This was directed by the same guy who did "I <3 Hucklebees," which confused me, and "Flirting with Disaster," which I remember hating.  It will be interesting to see what David O. Russell will direct next.

Postscript: I did read the book. The big dance scene was in the middle of the book and not the end like it was in the movie. Both Cooper and Laurence brought a lot to the characters they played and even made them more likeable. What Pat finds in the shower that sets him off is a big reveal at the end of the book whereas in the movie, the audience is told this right away.