Silver Linings Playbook 2012

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: An edgy romantic dramedy that suits our anxious times. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The performances of these actors are reason enough to go. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: It's lopsided and spotty, but it's alive in a way that suddenly makes you remember to what degree most Hollywood movies aren't. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: 'Silver Linings Playbook' is fun, sharp and sometimes moving, but it's not reinventing any kind of wheel. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: "Silver Linings Playbook," the exuberant new movie from David O. Russell, does almost everything right. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: There's nothing wrong with the overrated Jennifer Lawrence that some serious acting lessons couldn't improve. The rest of the actors are pretty much on their own. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Everything comes together brilliantly in "Silver Linings Playbook"-for the film's crazed but uncrazy lovers; for the filmmaker, David O. Russell, and best of all for lucky us. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "The Silver Linings Playbook" defies categorization: it's both comedy and drama, without fitting neatly into either genre. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's the perfect material for Russell, who not only deals perceptively with the dizzying swings of manic depression, but makes it the fabric of a big, generous, happy-making ensemble comedy. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: For a movie that seems at times to have no idea what it's trying to do, "Silver Linings Playbook" is compulsively watchable. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: No matter how grim it's looking for certain kinds of laughter, as long as there's David O. Russell, things will be OK. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: David O. Russell has pulled off a tricky feat here, finding just the right tone in crafting a romantic comedy whose sweethearts suffer from bipolar disorder and depression. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: David O. Russell returns to his distinctive brand of neurotic screwball comedy, and like his early features Spanking the Monkey and Flirting With Disaster, this one somersaults giddily from sanity to insanity to sanity again. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I say good for Russell for risking a protagonist who requires some patience and forgiveness. Read more

Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times: It's clever and cute and never lets you forget it, winning in spite of how much it insists on it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Lawrence, in her most high-low, sad-comic turn yet, is remarkable. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Sharp of tongue, generous of spirit, Silver Linings Playbook is a jagged, loopy romantic comedy about "crazy" people that insists, deep down, we're all a little nuts. Read more

Ricardo Baca, Denver Post: This meaningful film keeps the laughs, giddy anxiousness and warm butterflies from the trailer and sustains it all through two full hours of a love story. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It shouldn't work - there's just too much going on. But it does. Spectacularly. Go see it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A crazy beaut of a comedy that brims with generosity and manages to circumvent predictability at every turn. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: With great pacing, a great sense of the moment and some of the most entertaining one-liners you'll find this side of a Coen brothers' film, there's much to like about Silver Linings Playbook. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence expand their range in David O. Russell's winning comedy romance about two people struggling to rebuild their lives. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Dramatic, emotional, even heartbreaking, as well as wickedly funny, it has the gift of going its own way, a complete success from a singular talent. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: "Playbook" walks a tightrope in how it portrays mental illness -- deriving humor out of its characters' actions while demonstrating just how deep-rooted their problems are. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The movie doesn't break any thematic ground, and in other hands this same material might have made for an insufferable Katherine Heigl vehicle. But Russell and his cast make it sing - and soar, too. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Some movies are so likable, so naturally charming, that you'll forgive any dopey idea they throw at you. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Pretty much a miscalculation from beginning to end. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A determinedly offbeat romance and rather knowing portrait of self-destructive behavior. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, NPR: Cooper's performance meets Lawrence's, beautifully, halfway. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: Writer-director Russell is just the guy to bring out (and then calm) the manic dysfunction in these folks. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Because of Lawrence, I just can't write off this movie. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A head-spinning wonder of a movie about love and pain, reclamation and the totemic power of a National Football League franchise. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Silver Linings Playbook is a quirky adult romantic comedy that goes beyond the standard rhythms of the genre. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Just about everybody in the cast of David O. Russell's strange and disturbing and deeply romantic new film has the chance to act with a capital A. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "Silver Linings Playbook" is so good, it could almost be a terrific old classic. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Tinged with shadows and ignited by Lawrence and Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook raises the bar on romantic comedy. It's crazy good. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's a rom-com that succeeds in revitalizing that discredited genre where so many others have failed, injecting it with the grit and emotion of realist drama rather than with amped-up whimsy or social satire or montages of people walking on the beach. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's a strain to care about Pat, and it's impossible to believe in his world. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Silver Linings Playbook tells us that happily-ever-after may depend on finding people who coexist with our lunacy, not ones who can lead us out of it. In any case, it's crazy good. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Going deep without resorting to trick plays, the sure-handed "Silver Linings Playbook" scores on every possession. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: With Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell has again recalibrated, and achieved the quirky yet poignant balance of his best early work. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Silver Linings Playbook is a neurotic ode to family dysfunction and accepting the universal screwup in all of us, which is to say it's maybe the most heartwarming movie you'll ever see about bipolarity. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Silver Linings Playbook isn't perfect - the ending is untidy - but it may just be the year's best comedy. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Russell pitches the action at a manic, screwball pace, and the cast is more than up to the task, with Cooper and Lawrence attracting and repelling each other with equal dynamism. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: The acting is sparky and intelligent, with Cooper proving there's more to him than flashy good looks. As for Lawrence, she acts every role like there's a soulful storm raging inside of her. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: It's impossible to shake the sense that what felt thrillingly, cohesively alive in the director's earlier movies plays here with more laurel-resting creakiness than go-for-broke verve. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Silver Linings is consistently entertaining, with its scrappy, well-drawn characters, offbeat humor and indefatigable positive outlook. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: In a script that never lapses into mundane or uninteresting language, the scenes between Pat and Tiffany are sculpted with an almost David Mamet-like sharpness. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Manic as it might be stylistically, emotionally Silver Linings Playbook maintains too even of a keel. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's Lawrence who knocked me sideways. I loved her in Winter's Bone and The Hunger Games but she's very young - I didn't think she had this kind of deep-toned, layered weirdness in her. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Would that every feel-good movie came by its good feelings so honestly. Read more