Frustrating as it can be to watch, nixing nuance for a heavy-handed storyline that convinces viewers of Pat and Tiffany's humanity is forgivable.

| Jan 14, 2021

Russell's smart, snappy script is delivered by a top-notch cast, including two thoroughly likeable and well-matched leads.

| Apr 9, 2018

But Silver Linings Playbook never induces a roll of the eyes, even if it never really surprises.

| Nov 5, 2013

Director David O. Russell, who adapted the novel, and his cast fill the story with engaging, believable characters.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 22, 2013

It's a rom-com that succeeds in revitalizing that discredited genre where so many others have failed, injecting it with the grit and emotion of realist drama rather than with amped-up whimsy or social satire or montages of people walking on the beach.

| Jan 4, 2013

Unique, beguiling, and occasionally frustrating: These descriptions equally apply to Silver Linings Playbook and its two central characters.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2013

A crazy beaut of a comedy that brims with generosity and manages to circumvent predictability at every turn.

| Original Score: A | Jan 4, 2013

Offers the satisfaction you'd expect from a romcom and feel-good sports movie, but Lawrence and Cooper's delicate treatment of their characters makes it far more than a fleeting source of entertainment.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 24, 2012

Silver Linings Playbook remains a very classy, acceptably funny slice of comic drama. But that eventual cop-out feels deeply unsatisfactory.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 24, 2012

This is a date movie that caters to the needs of both men and women: American football and comedy, ballroom dancing and romance. Silver Linings Playbook covers all those bases -- and rises above them too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 23, 2012

Seeing it a second time has made me love it even more, not always the case.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 23, 2012

Silver Linings Playbook is all things to all moviegoers. Please join the queues circling the blocks.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 22, 2012

Might at first look like proper cinema red in tooth and claw, but underneath it's a bundle of matted fleece and bleating.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 22, 2012

This is a date movie that doesn't offer the sophistication it thinks it does, but is as enjoyable and good-natured as the genre requires.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 22, 2012

An edgy romantic dramedy that suits our anxious times.

| Nov 21, 2012

This meaningful film keeps the laughs, giddy anxiousness and warm butterflies from the trailer and sustains it all through two full hours of a love story.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 21, 2012

Lawrence, in her most high-low, sad-comic turn yet, is remarkable.

| Original Score: B | Nov 21, 2012

It shouldn't work - there's just too much going on. But it does. Spectacularly. Go see it.

| Original Score: A | Nov 21, 2012

There's nothing wrong with the overrated Jennifer Lawrence that some serious acting lessons couldn't improve. The rest of the actors are pretty much on their own.

| Nov 20, 2012

For a movie that seems at times to have no idea what it's trying to do, "Silver Linings Playbook" is compulsively watchable.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 20, 2012