Director David O. Russell has become something of a
specialist in staging chaotic family scenarios with emotions running to a fever
pitch and pushing the comedy of the moment nearly to the breaking point. He did
it several times in his sophomore effort Flirting with Disaster, which had Ben Stiller on a cross-country search for his
birth parents, and then most recently in The Fighter with boxer Mark Wahlberg and his girlfriend, played by a tough Amy
Adams, squaring off against his seventeen or so sisters. In Silver Linings Playbook, his newest film
that he both directed and wrote (adapted from the novel by Matthew Quick) brings
together just about every character, lead and supporting, under one roof for a
scene that would be greatly comedic if it weren’t also somewhat tragic at the
same time. It’s a scene that I thought just about went over the edge of reason,
but Russell brings it back to earth before things get out of hand.
