ACADEMY AWARDS: BEST PICTURE #3: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK  ***1/2 out of ****

David O. Russell's sleeper hit is probably the most lightly-toned of this year's Best Picture nominees, the runner-up being DJANGO UNCHAINED, but that deals with some gnarly slavery and race issues under a tongue-in-cheek veil.  SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a romantic comedy that deals in one of the Academy's favorite topics, mental health.
Pat (Bradley Cooper, best known for THE HANGOVER) is a man with bipolar disorder recently released from a court-mandated inpatient mental health facility after he caught his wife cheating on him and beat the living hell out of the man she was with.  Now he's trying to put his life back together, the piece that occupies most of his focus being reuniting with his wife Nikki, but she's moved on well past him.  He becomes acquainted with his friend's sister-in-law, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recently widowed woman with plenty of mental health issues of her own who also recently lost her job when her grieving led her to sleep with every one of her co-workers.  From here on, sparks fly but Pat continues to pursue Nikki while Tiffany ropes him into a dance contest with her, from which bets and coinciding bets on the Philadelphia Eagles game are made through a convoluted series of events. 
The cast is the strongest factor and did receive nominations in all four acting categories; Best Actor for Cooper, Best Actress for Lawrence, Best Supporting Actor for Robert DeNiro as Pat's father and Best Supporting Actress for Jacki Weaver as Pat's mother.  The real standout and most deserving of these nominations is Lawrence, whose wacky widow ranges from caustic to sweet, from impulsive to withdrawn and from crazy to witty with believability and unpredictability.  It's especially remarkable when contrasting her work here to her recent starring turn as Katniss in THE HUNGER GAMES, a role which she also inhabited well, but was a very different character, a tough-as-nails, quiet teenager, as opposed to this extroverted, world-weary wild woman who spouts fast and furious dialogue with vigor.
The film's most notable weakness is its pacing which occasionally drags and the tone is sometimes shaky, so it really is up to the actors most of the time, but fortunately, they deliver.  There are many funny moments, especially Pat's enraged middle-of-the-night tirade after finishing Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and Pat and Tiffany's dinnertime bonding over story-swapping about various prescription drugs, and there is plenty here to interest both genders as a date movie.