The Joy of Reading

The best thing about commuting by public transportation is the opportunity to read.

I am, once again, utterly enamored of Michael Ondaatje.  When I first read The English Patient back in the early 1990s, I remember thinking, on the very first page, “this man is a expletive deleted poet.”  I soon learned that he is a poet as well as novelist, and immediately read one of his books of poetry, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.  

 Ondaatje’s interests range wide through the human experience, and his focus and dedication to his subject draw his readers into the stories he writes, and along whatever pathways he chooses.  We are powerless to do other than follow along, listening and watching.
 
I recently read two books from my “still unread” stack, both by Ondaatje.  The first was The Cat’s Table, about a child’s journey from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) on a ship with a few other children and a wide range of adults, to England, where the narrator would grow up to be a writer.  Ondaatje dips into the present, then goes back to the past, and introduces us to characters with such depth we believe we know them, and hope to know them when the narrator grows up.  Seeing the world through the eyes, and heart, of Mr. Ondaatje's young and adult narrator is an education and a joy.

 It’s a riveting piece of work, which I relived with delight at a friend’s apartment whose bathtub shower curtain is a world map!  I could follow the route from Colombo across the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, and through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean.   I love maps almost as much as I love books.

The next was Divisadero, a story of a fractured family, some blood-related, some not, their lives together and apart.  The continuing stories of Claire and Coop over decades in the western United States are obliquely contrasted with the life of Anna, who ran away from a family tragedy, winding up in France studying a French poet in the house he lived in for his final years. I believe the most wondrous thing about Divisadero is that, although I’d never heard of the French poet Lucien Segura, I assumed he was real.  Then I looked him up and every reference to him on the internet was in Mr. Ondaatje’s novel.  While this was disappointing, in that I could not read the poetry, it was far more hilarious that a character in a novel had seemed so real to so many readers that internet search engines continue to explore the world wide web in vain to find Lucien Segura outside Mr. Ondaatje’s novel.  Beyond the poet, though, scenes of the other characters’ lives, their connections, broken and unbroken, continue to step forward to the front of my consciousness even when unbidden.

Today I was gathering together all the slips of paper and post-it notes on my desk, hoping to consolidate them in some kind of order.  One of the slips of paper was a post-it with numbers and words.  Just looking at them, I could readily deduce that this had been my bookmark for Wolf Hall.  It is apt that I’ve just re-discovered this post-it (and will look up all of these words, names, phrases again) since I’m now reading Hilary Mantel’s sequel to Wolf Hall,  Bring Up the Bodies.  I am thrilled to read that this is intended as a trilogy, so I have yet another to look forward to once I’ve finished Thomas Cromwell’s and Henry the VIII's and Anne Boleyn’s adventures in Bring Up the Bodies.

When I read Ms. Mantel’s work, I feel I’m reading history, even while fully aware that her work — told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell — is fiction.  Just so with Mr. Ondaatje’s prose.  I believe it’s all true.  This is the power of finely wrought fiction.  These are the joys of reading good books.

 Next:  to dip into the stack of non-fiction books awaiting my attention.

~ Molly Matera, readily ignoring the laundry and mopping that I really intended to do this weekend.

The only math in Life of Pi is in the CGI

Life of Pi is a gorgeous film, a visual feast — once you get used to the 3D.  I’m glad  the technology exists allowing stories like Life of Pi to be told by great directors like Ang Lee, without harming any animals, but I do wish film publicists and marketers wouldn’t tell me about it.   I prefer not to wonder if the birds and mammals and reptiles in the Patel family zoo in Pondicherry, India, are real or CGI.  As for 3D, I continue to find it distracting. Film is a 2-dimensional art form.  3D is provided by the human mind, which needs no techno-tricks.

As for the story:  The Patel family runs a zoo in India.  Financial realities lead the father to pack up the zoo animals and his family to head for Canada.  This is no luxury liner, the family cannot even get vegetarian meals — just rice.  The zoo animals are stowed below decks and sedated (in an attempt to allay the inevitable seasickness and fear).  When a storm at sea tosses people overboard and sinks the ship, it tossed most thoughts of technology out of my mind.  The storm was magnificent, the zebra swimming, the zebra leaping, all these things known to be CGI captivated me.

Mind you, I cannot help thinking, in the case of Life of Pi, if wondering what’s real and what’s technologically contrived, mayn’t have been, at least partially, the point.  What’s real?  What’s not? Which reality would you choose?

Life of Pi is beautifully filmed (can it even be called that anymore?  Is it not “generated” nowadays?), and Mr. Lee’s collaboration with cinematographer Claudio Miranda and editor Tim Squyres has not only created a work of art, but told a riveting story.  The animals are magnificent and have personalities and roles to play — the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, Orange Juice the orangutan, the poor zebra, and the hateful hyena.  We come to know the charming Piscine Patel (and the young boy’s story of how he came to call himself Pi is a delight) from early days at the zoo to life on the ship to survival at sea.  The stories this movie told kept me rapt, tethered to that lifeboat with Pi and Richard Parker. Who would care if he was hallucinating by the time he got to the nocturnally toxic island of the meercats.  Meercats!

Pi and Richard Parker’s survival on the ocean, learning to fish, the wonder of the whale, the light, above and beneath the surface of the ocean, all these things enveloped me.  I never questioned that reality.  Only representatives of the shipping company who owned the sunken ship would do so.  I prefer the beautiful story to the brief horrid story Pi tells them. The latter made excellent sense, and casting certain people as certain animals was much more likely than the story the audience witnesses with Pi.  Nevertheless, I prefer the original story.  Giving the audience the opportunity to examine the nature of truth is unusual,   exciting, and telling. 

In addition to the wonderful animals, there were simple, realistic human performances by Suraj Sharma as Pi (Piscine) Patel for most of the film (Pi is also winningly played by Ayush Tandon and Gautam Belur in his childhood), Tabu as Pi’s mother, Adil Hussain as his father, Irrfan Khan as the adult Pi Patel, and finally Gerard Depardieu played the vile ship’s cook to perfection.

Suraj Sharma as Pi, Richard Parker as himself.

Ang Lee’s film of Life of Pi is clever, heartfelt, and a brilliant telling of a thoroughly engaging story, which encourages me to read the original novel by Yann Martel.  Mr. Lee’s specialty as a director is the human heart, which is why his films of Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and now Life of Pi, despite being so extraordinarily different, all work so extremely well. 

~ Molly Matera, looking forward to seeing the film at home:  A good story still works on a smaller screen in 2D 

Much Ado About Something

The something is a breezy production of Much Ado About Nothing by Theatre For a New Audience.  Last winter I saw TFANA’s Arin Arbus-directed production of The Taming of the Shrew  with Maggie Siff as Kate.  This year the same director pairs Maggie Siff as Beatrice with the marvelous Jonathan Cake as Benedick. 

TFANA makes excellent use of the space at the Duke Theatre on 42^nd Street.  Again they create multiple playing levels by using the catwalk above the two-stepped stage, plus a tree for climbing and hiding.  As if that weren’t enough, there’s an extra variable level: a swing for Beatrice, Benedick, then both to rise and fall on.  This clever, compact scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez is both warm and practical, as is the lighting design by Donald Holder.  Director Arbus set the play in Italy before World War I, so the men’s costuming is fairly modern while the women are still in the confining clothing of the prewar period, illustrating the difference in levels of social freedom accorded to each sex, which feeds the Don John subplot that casts doubt on Hero’s chastity.  That said, the costuming by Constance Hoffman is less than exciting, but the hair is fabulous.

Any production of Much Ado must find the balance between the light and dark of its two storylines, since the lightness of the primary romance between the juvenile and the ingénue is darkened by the evil machinations of Don John.  Claudio and Hero are such dull creatures that they couldn’t carry a standard romance, so Shakespeare threw in the classical “chaste-maid-falsely-accused” plot to keep it moving.  Unfortunately for a modern audience this plot causes some issues; for instance, we cannot understand why Margaret does not speak up immediately upon recognizing her own actions falsely ascribed to Hero as the bride is falsely accused at the church.  But not to worry.  Beatrice and Benedick elucidate all while falling more deeply in love. 

Cake and Siff are good partners, their sprightly badinage a challenge and a delight to classical actors.  Reluctant lovers Beatrice & Benedick are the ancestors of every good romantic team in theatre and film — think Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in, well, anything.  Maggie Siff is having a fine time as Beatrice, but is not having quite as much fun as Jonathan Cake is having with Benedick — he’s having such a lark that he almost sweats his beard off.  Seeing this production makes me think of Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film, that of the spectacularly funny opening credits, and the magical connection between Branagh and then-wife Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice.  They were magnificent because of the sparks each created in the other.  Siff and Cake are good, but the magic doesn’t quite happen. 

Photo by Richard Perry (c) 2013 New York Times

I recall that Michelle Beck’s performance as Celia in the Bridge Project’s As You Like It was uneven, and here, too, she sometimes overcomes the character Hero as written, then other times succumbs to the blandness, as most actors do.  Her occasional flashes of anger at her accuser are most welcome.  Matthew Amendt’s Claudio is childishly enthusiastic, then jealous, and his work at the tomb of his bride is moving, but his Claudio has less depth than Ms. Beck’s Hero.

Graham Winton is a vulnerable Don Pedro, and his proposal to Beatrice is quite touching, her rejection even more painful.  John Keating, not unusually, plays two opposite roles and both quite well, the priest and Verges.

Robert Langdon Lloyd does heartfelt work as Leonato, father of Hero. It’s always good to see Peter Maloney, here twice blessed as Leonato’s brother Antonio and the Sexton.  John Christopher Jones’ Dogberry stumbled over the English language with veracity and vigor.

Denis Butkus and Paul Niebanck work well together as Conrade and Borachio respectively, the followers of the villainous Don John, who is played with a quirky intensity by Saxon Palmer.

Kate MacCluggage is quite entertaining as the overly friendly Margaret.  Elizabeth Meadows Rouse as her pal Ursula is rather amateurish — she seems to be playing a stock character, in common with the other tertiary characters such as Balthazar and the Watch.

.  Cake as Benedick and Siff as Beatrice.  Photo (c) 2013 by Gerry Goodstein

The company is charming and energetic and the audience is happy to spend a few hours with them.  Arin Arbus’ leading actors did fine work together, always returning to the witty and swell repartee of Beatrice and Benedick.  This Much Ado About Nothing is a cleverly pleasant evening in the theatre and runs through April 6th.

~ Molly Matera, signing off once I’ve ordered the DVD of the Branagh film.

Where is the Other Place?

KING:     Where is Polonius?

HAMLET : In heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself.

      - Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act IV, Scene 3

Before I arrived at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of The Other Place, I wondered if the title referred to Hamlet’s “other place,” or something else entirely.  Now I think it’s at least both, and maybe many more places. 

Thursday night I saw great theatre.  That must be clear.  Such evenings, such performances are rare indeed.

Laurie Metcalf as Juliana Smithton sits in a chair lit by a square spot on the spartan stage as we enter.  The audience slowly, noisily gets settled.  Strange sounds, like a PA system in an airport, but far, far off, begin to overcome the chattering.  The house lights go down.  Metcalf stirs.

Initially, not knowing what’s going on, Juliana is not particularly likeable.  She’s giving a lecture, she’s giving us snarky asides, she is brash, a bit cruel, insulting, full of herself, and always right.  But we believe what she says, for … why wouldn’t we.  Soon we come to realize she may not be a reliable narrator of her own story.  Still, we’re halfway through the play before we realize that not all the characters we’re meeting are as they seem. 

Zoe Perry and Laurie Metcalf in "The Other Place."  Photo by Joan Marcus. (c) 2012 The Manhattan Theatre Club

This is a magnificent production of Sharr White’s intense play with precise direction by Joe Mantello.  The timing of this piece is clearly defined and spontaneous at once.  From the imaginative and oddly beautiful set (Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce) to the thrillingly emotive lighting design (Justin Townsend), the right costumes (David Zinn) for each of the eight characters played by a company of four at different times in different places, all the way to the video and projection design (William Cusick) that take us from inside the character’s mind to different places in her life.  While speaking of production values, music and sound design by Fitz Patton joined with all the other elements to make this a perfect evening in the theatre.  But this play does not rely on technological brilliance alone. 

The physical behavior of the four actors determine the time of day, the year, the place, and the emotional state of these people — howling in pain, clenched in despair, or just confused — all augmented by the single set with multiple personalities.  We are enthralled. 

Bill Pullman as Ian Smithton.  Photo by Joan Marcus, (c) 2012 Manhattan Theatre Club.

Bill Pullman as Juliana’s long-suffering husband Ian breaks our hearts, as Juliana breaks his.  It is Ian's behavior that tells us who Juliana was, is, leading us gently into the reality of her life.  Ms. Metcalf’s real life daughter Zoe Perry plays three different characters with nothing in common, and without a second of stage time in which one character might be mistaken for another.  John Schiappa also plays a few roles, precisely demarking each one from the others.

And some of the roles these last two play are not entirely … well, real.  Sharr White has created multiple worlds, each one totally believable, but only one true.  These universes and lives are interwoven so expertly, so tightly, that each moment Laurie Metcalf creates is as immediate and real as the last. 

Ms. Metcalf gives us the glamorous to vicious, pathetic to raging woman that is Juliana at different times and places.  She slips sharply into the past, back to the present, into unreality, and we always know that something has changed just by virtue of Ms. Metcalf’s body and face and voice. As we watch this woman and her brilliant mind deteriorate, we forgive her fury.  We forgive her trespasses.  We pray it doesn't happen to us.  We grieve with Juliana as she comes to understand who and where and what she is.

Such performances are rare, as are complementary elements of stagecraft clarifying the questions, the answers, and more questions, with a dash of hope, into a fine piece of theatre.  The Other Place is only playing to March 3rd.  Do not let this play pass you by.  (Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)

~ Molly Matera, with images visual and aural as well as lines running through her head six days later.

Mama's Got the Stuff

The opening of “Mama” is intriguing.  A car, its driver’s door open, is parked haphazardly in front of a well-kept suburban home where a little girl is choosing a toy — one for an ever so slightly younger child — to bring with her to school.  A gunshot is heard, but the child, Victoria, does not recognize it as that.  She has no foreboding.  We have.

(c) 2012, Toma 78/DeMilo Production Co.

Something is amiss.  Over these scenes we hear a radio report of financial failures, fraud, and murder.  That’s when we meet the totally stressed out father of the child.  He bundles his two daughters into the car and drives off, too fast, onto icy roads around the mountain and into the woods.  Without telling you something quite startling that occurs, I’ll move on and just say that each step in this story is fraught with dread.  From a wild ride then walk through the winter woods, two little girls cling to each other in an empty cabin, without an inkling of what’s going on.

The children in this film have been remarkably well cast.  In the opening scenes, Morgan McGarry is intelligently precious as young Victoria, wrapping her arms around baby sister Lilly, played by Sierra and Maya Dawe with the simplicity of the small children they are.  When the scene advances to five years later, Miss McGarry grows into the lovely Megan Charpentier as Victoria.  The baby-faced Isabelle Nélisse is an apt choice for Lilly, with the same drooping apple cheeks as the Dawes.  When we meet the girls again after five years alone in the woods, I wonder if young Victoria had been somehow computerized, so similar are the two different girls playing the child.  Miss Nélisse’s Lilly is terrifying in her feral nature, and Miss Charpentier’s Victoria heartbreaking as she struggles back to civilization.

Uncle Lucas, Annabel, Lilly and Victoria in MAMA.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jeffrey and then Lucas (the Daddy of the girls and then his brother Luke), does straightforward work, but the rollercoaster is ridden by Jessica Chastain as Lucas’ Goth rocker girlfriend Annabel, an unwilling maternal figure who warms to the role when they win custody of the children.  After the girls are discovered in the woods, they are treated by Dr. Dreyfuss (a solid performance by Daniel Kash), a doctor with as much imagination as academic knowledge.  The adults are very fine in this film, and Chastain continues to build her repertoire of characters, each one different from the last.  But it’s the children who are riveting.

Mama is good, but not great.  At times the underscoring was more obvious than ominous, though it never diminished the excellent work by director of photography Antonio Riestra.  Director Andrés Muschietti wrote the striking script with his sister Barbara Muschietti and Neil Cross.  There is no room for ambiguity in their story.  From the first ten minutes (not to mention the trailers and advertising) the ghost is corporeal.  Generally I find that less fun than the ambiguity of Robert Wise’s classic film The Haunting, but the influence of executive producer Guillermo del Toro was apparent in the stunning visualization of “Mama.”  More importantly, while Shirley Jackson’s heroine in The Haunting thought she sought death with a family of sorts, the anti-heroine of Mama sought family and life after death. 

The goal of a ghost story is to startle the audience, who should be overcome with shivers, shrieks, gasps, and screams. And some times that gasp could be in wonder at the utterly surprising scenes this film reveals.  Not your usual ghost story, Mama is sophisticated, visually polished, and worth your time if you like a good ghost story creatively visualized.  

~ Molly Matera, signing off.  Not likely to sleep well....

A Russian Classic Revamped: Anna Karenina

From the get-go and throughout, Anna Karenina was breathtaking. Bearing in mind that I read the novel only once several decades ago and am not a purist when it comes to Russian literature, I believe director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard’s conceit for telling this story reached the heart of the matter. Some political ramifications were doubtless lost (despite an early scene that looked as if it could have come from Dr. Zhivago), but it’s clearly the love story (and the fall-out therefrom) that counts in this version. Fittingly, the railroad plays a recurring role in the story of Anna Karenina, and it’s a marvelous vehicle — snow-covered, city to country, country to city, mixing people, gentry, serf, drones. It separates young lovers, then joins them, then separates again. Nothing’s more thrilling than a train ride through the movies.

The theatricality of the entire enterprise was a never-ending delight. I was hooked from my first sight of the stage, the bird’s eye view available from the upper levels of the theatre, characters looking down on the room they just left, and turning turning turning to walk out of the stage set into a field of whatever it is that Domhnall Gleeson’s Constantine Levin and his freed serfs scythe. Visually splendid are the actors as well, with the traffic-stopping Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina in stunning costumes by Jacqueline Durran. Costumes and settings and certainly Ms. Knightley’s jewelry did not adhere strictly to the time period any more than the ballroom dancing did, but who could care if beauty took a left turn for a joyride. The dancing in particular was fanciful and clever and quite possibly the way the lower classes might have imagined the upper classes to have moved in those overly ornate rooms, as if a luxurious birth afforded people grace and rhythm to do the complicated, flowing movements.

Jude Law as Karenin (c) 2012 Focus Features

Who hasn’t said, to themselves or aloud, that just a few years ago it would have been Jude Law as Vronsky, and wouldn’t that have been swell. Well, yes, but I’m happy to see him grow into the mature man he is, playing surprising roles for the joy of it. Jude Law does some of his very best work, subdued and thoughtful, as the properly repressed yet unalterably kind Alexei Karenin. Matthew Macfadyen put aside his often dour countenance to be a playful brother to Anna as the philandering Oblonsky. The wonderful Kelly Macdonald represented all women as betrayed wife Dolly. Her reaction to Anna’s behavior is yearning and admiring, in sharp contrast to the women of high society, exemplified by Shirley Henderson as an unknown woman at the opera, where everyone recognizes Anna. In contrast, Princess Myagkaya (an elegant Michelle Dockery) was empowered with the strength to be loyal.

Matthew Macfadyen as Oblonsky

Country fellow Levin loves the lovely Kitty (a sweet, sullen, then warm and tender Alicia Vikander), who is smitten with the dashing Vronsky (a seductive Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who dooms Anna Karenina as quickly as he falls for her. The lovely Ms. Knightley and delicious Mr. Taylor-Johnson are beautifully intertwined throughout the film.

Alicia Vikander as Kitty and Domhnall Gleeson as Levin

Emily Watson was morose as usual as Karenin’s friend, the Countess Ivanova. She represents her times well in its beginnings of forward-thinking actions by privileged classes, fighting for social equality for all except her own gender.

Mr. Wright’s direction is bold and exciting, aided by gorgeous cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, expert film editing by Melanie Oliver, an extraordinary production design by Sarah Greenwood that combined imagination and history, allowing the imagination to win. All of this was accompanied by a thrilling and moving score by Dario Marianelli.

As I left the theatre, I saw a poster for A Royal Affair and recognized Alicia Vikander who had just played the delightful Kitty. While that hadn’t been on my short list of films to see (isn’t winter swell, though, sending us indoors even in daylight to keep warm in the movie house?), but Ms. Vikander’s lustrous performance in Anna Karenina may yet move A Royal Affair up the list.

 If Anna Karenina is still playing on a big screen near you, go enjoy the visual splendor. If you’re a Russian literature purist, I can’t help you but to say it’s a fine film in and of itself. Read the book again later. Much later.

 ~ Molly Matera, signing off to read a good book….

Arterial Spray and Other Bodily Fluids

Quentin Tarantino loves his arterial spray.  Geysers of it, in fact.  For his fans looking for that sort of thing, Django Unchained did not disappoint.  Something did though. 

Christoph Walz as Dr. Schulz and Jamie Foxx as Django.

Django Unchained was sort of fun while it lasted.  Christoph Waltz as Dr. Schulz is brilliant, hilarious, and perversely lovable, as is his little traveling dentist’s wagon.  Jamie Fox does good work growing from a slave who barely raises his head to a free man on a mission.  And it was fun to pick out all the old TV/movie cowboys in the cast (Bruce Dern, Don Stroud, Lee Horsley, Michael Parks among others) and other “cameos” by Tom Wopat, Russ Tamblyn and his daughter Amber, not to mention Mr. Tarantino himself.  Yes, it’s a self-referential Hollywood western film, and pure Tarantino — a revenge masquerade on people who deserve the punishment. There was a lot of excellent work by the likes of Don Johnson as a southern slaveowner as well as Dennis Christopher as a sycophantic family lawyer.  Before I sound like the Academy Awards, I will take note of Leonardo DiCaprio’s slimy and marvelous work as Calvin Candie of the Candyland plantation, one of the most despicable characters ever seen on the screen.  Kerry Washington was beautiful and heartbreaking, Walton Goggins perfectly repulsive, and Laura Cayouette was creepily fragile as Candie’s widowed sister. This was all topped off with an unpleasant performance by Samuel L. Jackson, whom I did not even recognize until halfway through his first scene.

A hammer-wielding DiCaprio.

Unpleasant.  This film is unpleasant.

Many scenes in Django Unchained — perhaps I should say most — are deeply disturbing, and Mr. Tarantino may have been right to shove it down our throats.  Nevertheless, there’s really only so much blood and gore I can watch before it — dare I say — bores me.  While I sort of enjoyed the film as I watched and cringed and sometimes put my hands over my eyes, I really was not inspired to read or write or urge others to see this movie.  Loved the soundtrack, though.

Django Unchained is a little too long and a little too much, but while it is not likely to win him new fans, Mr. Tarantino’s work has plenty of fans who will probably love it.

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In December, I saw the quietly delightful Red Bull Theater production of Volpone or The Fox during its limited run.  Ben Jonson’s moralistic comedy shows the deteriorating mores and hypocrisy of Venetian society circa 1607 and is remarkably funny until everyone comes to their just ends, which were rather harsh in the 17th century. The production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre starred a sparkling Stephen Spinella as Volpone accompanied by a sleazy Cameron Fomar as Mosca, his “Parasite.” These two were joined by the unerring Alvin Epstein as Corbaccio, with a saucy turn by Tovah Feldshuh as the English Lady.  Even Christina Pumariega in what could easily have been the thankless role of the Merchant’s wife was a delight.  The entire cast shone under the tiptop, brisk, funny direction of Artistic Director Jesse Berger. 

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I liked Silver Linings Playbook.  I didn’t love it.  Largely because by the end I felt it was a crock.  Early on, even halfway through, the mental issues of the characters were, so far I could see, honestly portrayed.  There is humor, compassion, crazy people, misunderstandings, and a lot of laughs.  Then suddenly love conquers all.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted.

David O. Russell, directing his own screenplay based on a novel by Matthew Quick, has a splendid cast and they all have a rollicking good time, as does the audience.  Bradley Cooper is the damaged young man who is just getting out of a psychiatric institution where he was incarcerated after his violent attack on his wife’s lover.  Pat (Junior) seems like a nice guy, looking for a positive way to view life — and then he loses it, for no good reason.  We see and hear the cues, but they are not good reasons for a sane person to trash the attic room or wake people at 4 in the morning.  Of course he doesn’t want to take his meds, or see his shrink (a warm and fuzzy Anupam Kher), or abide by the restraining order his wife Nikki has out on him, which Officer Keogh (Dash Mihok) is prepared to enforce.  In fact, the whole neighborhood seems ready to enforce it. The reaction of Pat's former employer (an excellent scene for Patsy Meck as the high school principal) when he approaches her tells us just how scary this guy was.

Cooper, Weaver, and Tucker

Pat’s parents are played by the remarkable Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver.  This woman is amazing, such a wonderful mother, loving, protective, tolerant of her sons and her husband.  It’s as if she and DeNiro and been married for decades, they all fit together perfectly. To watch these two performances alone, this film is worth anyone’s time.

Back to Pat — all of Pat’s behavior is suspect, all of it is self-destructive, and he believes he and his wife have an amazing love and will get over this little bump in the road.  He is the only one in the film and in the theatre who believes that for a moment.  Pat visits an old friend (John Ortiz as Ronnie), married to Veronica (a good job by Julia Stiles) who is a friend of the estranged wife, Nikki.  Underdressed at dinner with Ronnie and Veronica he meets Veronica’s little sister Tiffany, young, recently widowed, and with problems of her own.  These two first connect over the medications they dislike.  Jennifer Lawrence gives a terrific performance as a tough girl who appears to be fighting for her life.  And then she’s fighting for Pat’s.  All of this through dance.  The visit from Danny, Pat’s friend from the mental institution as played by a delightful Chris Tucker, adds some pizzazz to that dance routine.

Cooper at Pat, Lawrence as Tiffany, and Tucker as Danny.

The film is fun, the characters engaging — even when we really want them to take their meds — and the insanity of “normal” people over sports events is delightfully portrayed.  Americans’ relationship with sports plays a part in this story, as does gambling, as do anger management issues…. The apple did not fall far from the tree, is all I need say.

So up until the last few scenes, I quite enjoyed being all positive with Pat and his parents and his friends.  I am well aware that film compresses time and events, but really.  Love does not conquer all, and I found the final scenes of “normalcy” to be quite annoying. 

Nevertheless, all the performances are quite good, with outstanding work by Mr. DeNiro and Ms. Weaver. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off until next time.