An excellent film.
I confess that this movie was better than I was expecting. I thought I would find a simple romantic comedy, conventional and relatively predictable, but I was very pleased with the way the story develops and the conception of the characters. The director, David O. Russell, is also responsible for The Fighter, a film that won two Oscars but that I don't think is as good as this one.
The script is, in my opinion, quite well written, and follows Pat, a man who has just been released from a psychiatric hospital where he served a sentence of a few months, after catching his wife in the act of adultery and violently assaulting her lover. With his marriage over, he goes to his parents' house, his father being a crazy fan of the town's football team and seems to be convinced that having his son close during games brings good luck to the team. In the midst of his attempts to get close to his ex-wife (who has imposed an injunction on him by law), he approaches Tiffany, a young widow, with a strong temper and very explosive manners, who proposes to help him in swaps him being her date in a dance contest.
The story is very good, and it is full of shenanigans arising from the volatility of Pat and Tiffany's personalities. The characters, played convincingly and very committed by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, are complex and demanding, and it was great to see the way in which the two actors were facing the challenge and solving what they had in front of them. Furthermore, Lawrence won the Oscar for the work done in this film, which, in addition, had seven other nominations – Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. In addition to the duo of main actors, the film has an excellent supporting cast, including the impeccable Robert DeNiro, the wonderfully restrained and maternal Jacki Weaver, and the dysfunctional and strange couple played by Julia Styles and John Ortiz.
In the midst of so many good things, is there anything less good or possibly bad? I think so. Although I really like the film in general, I feel that the ending was a little cliché, and that the solution found is a little too conventional for a film that seems to want to give us something different from most romantic comedies we are used to. I also thought that there are some characters that end up not getting enough attention (Julia Styles, John Ortiz, in a subplot that gets very sketchy and underdeveloped). But these are points that end up not detracting from the film's value, criticisms and minor repairs.
On a technical level, I would like to positively highlight the excellence of the cinematography, with the film taking advantage of the good filming locations in the city of Philadelphia, and the editing, which makes the film pleasant, giving it the right pace. Good sets and costumes (in particular what is reserved for Lawrence, who has a somewhat depressing look) complete the positive values of a discrete production, without great effects or visual artifices.