The wonderful thing about David O. Russell’s new movie is you are never quite sure what you are being served up. It’s the story of bipolar 30 something-year-old Patrick released prematurely from Mental Hospital by his doting mother and who now spends every moment of the day and night obsessing about getting his wife Nikki back, even though she has a restraining order against him. There is Pat Snr his stay-at-home sports fanatic father who has been banned from the Baseball Stadium after getting violent, and also along the way Patrick meets Tiffany a young widow who has her own demons and agenda. Should we laugh or should we cry or just look very concerned and/or worried?  All that above and more as this refreshing and totally enchanting movie combines drama, comedy, (farce even), romance, plus its own very askew take on mental illness too

The movie starts at a very fast pace trying to keep up with an over-excited Patrick who’s determined to get his life back on track now he’s been released after being forcibly detained for beating his wife’s lover up. He’s consumed with passion for her, and everything about her, despite the warnings of his parents and his Therapist.  At a dinner, his best friend sets him up with Tiffany, and they seem like a perfect match.  Both speak exactly as they find without a filter and often what they say is wildly inappropriate.  Both are also very angry at being trapped in situations that are not of their own choice.  At the end of the evening Tiffany offers sex but Patrick refuses as he still considers himself a faithful married man.

Patrick is desperate to get word to his wife about how he is a changed man and so Tiffany does a trade-off with him.  She offers to secretly convey a letter to Nikki in return for him helping fulfill her only one real dream i.e. to enter a local dance competition.

The question is can Tiffany deliver the letter, and can Patrick remain committed enough to the dancing that he dislikes, and will Pat Snr’s irresponsible gambling make them all suffer, and can Dolores keep her family in one piece without losing her sanity or patience?

I will confess whilst there are (just a few) elements of the plot that didn’t sit quite right with me, but each and every character was totally compelling as were the actors that gave them such life. Bradley Cooper  was totally unforgettable as the manic but lovable Patrick and as I have never seen him in any role other than where he only had to look pretty and/or funny, I have never really appreciated what a fine actor he is too.  He was helped by the fact that Tiffany was played by a rather alluring Jennifer Lawrence who looked like a completely different person than when she picked up an Oscar nod for her turn in ‘Winters Bone’. Ms Lawrence showed again what a remarkable  talent she is …. and the chemistry between her and Mr Cooper made the story so much more authentic.

Patrick’s parents were played by the ever masterful acting genius Robert De Niro, but the real treat was  the remarkable Jackie Weaver the actress who out of the blue was nominated for an Oscar for ‘Animal Kingdom’  a small Australian movie that very few of us saw.  She is a sensational actress and as Dolores was the perfect anxious mother who really believed ‘it will all work it in the end’ …. I so hope we see mere of her on our screens.

And lest I forget the hilarious Chris Tucker as Patrick’s best friend Danny who constantly found ways to escape the Loony Bin before his time.

I’m not going to reveal any spoilers on how it does work out, but there is a wonderful scene at the beginning when Patrick believes the way back to Nikki’s heart is by reading all the syllabus books of the English course she is now taking.  In a angry moment he hurtles one of them out of the window in the middle of the night and then wakes his poor parents up just to shout abut how pissed he was with Ernest Hemingway for writing ‘A Farewell To Arms’ ‘because of its miserable finale that so sucked!’  He raves that the world is hard enough as it is, and we all deserve a better ending than that.  He’s right of course we do, and luckily we get one in this rather wonderfully enchanting movie.

★★★★★★★★★