Willow ,'Empty Places'
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Does anyone want to explain to me what I was supposed to like about Silver Linings Playbook?
I'm normally a huge defender of David O Russell's work, but this was just bad. I can see why the performances got some critical acclaim, but WOW what a sanctimonious cliched piece of crap was the plot and script. I kind of can't believe this is the same guy who brought us I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings.
ha! I was entertained by it and I thought the acting was pretty good. I did not find it particularly sanctimonious. I also liked how mental health was generally approached: the characters (and should we say MOST of the characters, not just the two main) had problems and they seemed to be in the process of working things out - as imperfectly as it may be.
I guess I didn't remember that it was a David O. Russell thing, but you just reminded me how long it's been since I saw Three Kings, which I adored.
Part of my problem with it is, I don't like football movies, dance movies, or romantic comedies. So in the normal course of things, I would never ever have picked this movie up. But since it's an Oscar nominee and it's David O Russell, I figured it must have some twist that none of the trailers hinted at. But no...it's a football/dance rom-com. It hits every stupid cliched rom-com beat there is. They instantly don't like each other but there's an absurdly contrived reason why they have to hang out all the time! And then they have to do something to save the day but they almost don't because FEELINGS and MISCOMMUNICATION! But then it works out anyway at the last minute because FATE!
I mean, I don't get it. Did he lose a bet or something?
Jessica,
technically, they did not instantly hate each other. Not sure what his feelings were, but she liked him at the first meeting. She tracked him down to happen upon him while he was jogging. I could be wrong, but I thought the screenwriter was kind of setting up their relationship to be a "healthier" version of the stalking behavior the man had engaged in with his wife.
What was not clear to me, that I wish the script had done a bit better, is establish approximately when his feelings changed. I probably could read something in the script, but it wasn't as clear as it needed to be.
Yeah, I don't agree that it hits all the rom com cliches at all. I mean, it hits some of them - it's definitely a romantic comedy - but I don't think they ever didn't like each other. She definitely liked him (at first, I think, because her sister disapproved, but then because he refused her and didn't make any concessions to her own oddness). I also read the movie as him liking her from the very first moment, but being unable to break out of his obsession - he didn't really want to be with his wife any more, but couldn't go there.
I also don't think there were misunderstandings. There was outright lying with the purpose of helping him get over his issues, which by all accounts should have caused all sorts of issues for them. The fact that it didn't is a little bit of a rom-com cliche, but also a testament to complexity of relationships.
In the end, yes, it's a dance/football/rom-com. With much better performances and significantly more interesting characters. And a more awesome final dance scene because they're just so awesomely bad. It reminded me of the climax of Little Miss Sunshine in a lot of ways. I think it is worthy of David A. Russell - it's not How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days .
I wouldn't say it reminded me of the end of Little Miss Sunshine, I would say it was a wholesale ripoff of the end of Little Miss Sunshine.
I was less than impressed with SLP. They did many things about portraying mental illness better than most movies/tv, which is not hard to do. I thoroughly enjoyed Jennifer Lawrence but Bradley Cooper's acting was mostly not at all believable to me. At the end my main thought was, THIS screenplay was nominated for an Oscar? Blergh.
Just saw a commerical for Fasterer and Furiouser 6, and it's kind of funny how those movies have evolved into these kind of buddy heist things, a la Ocean's 11.
That ad made that movie look like something I might enjoy.
I think I'm going to catch it on TNT or F/X.