David O Russell's multi-Oscar-nominated film is a romcom with a difference, dealing as it does with mental-health issues. Bradley Cooper, more usually found parlaying characters with arrested adolescence, here plays Pat Solitano, a man with a condition for which he hates taking his meds because they make him both physically bloated and mentally foggy
Pat returns home after a spell in an institution, having lost his marriage, his home and his job, and he hopes to win back his adulterous wife. But Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), herself troubled after the death of her husband and who has been self-medicating herself with lots of casual sex, come into his life.
The two broken souls of course eventually find each other but how they get there is an engaging watch, helped by a sassy script, sure-footed direction by Russell and terrific perfromances by Cooper and Lawrence. There's some fine supporting work by Robert De Niro (mostly reining himself in, although not entirely, from using his trademark grimaces) and Jacki Weaver as his parents, Anupam Kher as his therapist, and comic Chris Tucker as a fellow inpatient.
American football and ballroom dance are the channels through which Pat re-engages with his father and his new love (not a sentence one often gets to write) and the lack of sentimentality about those suffering mental ill health is both welcome and unusual in Hollywood movies. The film, which was nominated for eight Oscars (including all four acting awards) and won one (Lawrence, for best actress), is based on the book by Matthew Quick.
