'Silver Linings Playbook': Humanity in high-maintenance characters ★★★ 1/2

Hollywood movies, and even off-Hollywood independent films, have long encouraged us to empathize with unstable or psychologically troubled characters only if they're "kooky" for a little while, as a prelude to more palatable, normalized levels of craziness. You know. The charming kind. Happy ending, followed by a fade to a sunny shade of black.

Michael Phillips

November 15, 2012