'Silver Linings Playbook' finds new tricks for rom-com genre

NO MOVIE will ever rival "Rocky" in the hearts of sports-mad Philadelphians, but "Silver Linings Playbook" may come close.

For one thing, it's a very "Rocky"-like experience: local settings, a gritty feel, a sports angle, an unexpected love story between appealing neighborhood misfits, a third act that redefines what it means to win.

For another, it's likely to find a much more enthusiastic constituency among women.

Let's be honest. While Rocky Balboa may have inspired a generation of men to do pull-ups and drink their eggs, his wife Adrian Pennino did not inspire a generation of women to wear cat-eye glasses.

"Silver Linings Playbook" is a different animal - a love story with two equally attractive leads, powered by yet another revelatory performance from Jennifer Lawrence, a young actress who already has an Oscar nomination and a budding billion-dollar franchise to her credit.

Breaking out too is Bradley Cooper, only just established as a glamorous leading man, now going against that type as a fellow just released from a mental institution where he received treatment in lieu of a prison sentence on an assault conviction.

His Pat Solatano is jumpy, antic, restless, temperamental. The boiling anger that landed him in trouble is still barely contained - on the advice of his psychiatrist, he chants comfort phrases to keep himself under control.

In manic moments, words bubble hotly from Pat like lava, a symptom of what his doctors diagnosed as bipolar disorder, a condition (so we surmise) that's made Pat the black sheep in the Solatano household, for which his estranged father (Robert De Niro) now feels intense guilt.

One of director David O. Russell's achievements here is to give us a new look at familiar faces. Grim "Hunger Games" survivalist Lawrence is charming and funny. Handsome Cooper wears a trash bag for half the movie. Chris Tucker has a small, vivid role as a mental patient.

De Niro is more committed, energized and on his game than he's been in years. You don't have to be an Eagles fan to love the way, as Pat's dad, he tries to use the masculine rituals of Sunday football to forge a new relationship with Pat.

Restoring this father-son bond is a fraught process, with outbursts and relapses that ground the movie in reality, retesting Pat's tentative truce with his dad and mom (Jacki Weaver).

Russell lingers on the family tensions. He is in no hurry to get his screwball romance going, giving the movie an offbeat structure that makes it feel new. "Silver Linings" doesn't really announce itself as a romantic comedy until the movie is nearly an hour old.

That's in part because Pat, like most men on the cusp of a relationship, is the last to know he's in one. When he helps local widow Tiffany (Lawrence) prep for a dance contest, he thinks of it as a good deed, a bridge back to his ex.

He's slow to see that his platonic relationship with this strange girl isn't a placeholder - it's very likely his future.

Watching Tiffany and Pat jog through the old-ring suburban streets of Upper Darby or eat Raisin Bran at the Llanerch Diner, you realize what an exclusive place romantic comedy has become in Hollywood. The jokes all seem to come from the same place, the same characters, writers, social status.

"Silver Linings" feels different and fresh, also sincere. We even forgive it its audience-pleasing nod to trendy reality TV, as Pat and Tiffany gear up for a big-night dance contest that ties the fortunes of all characters (and the Eagles and Cowboys) into a wager made by Pat's gambling-crazed father.

It's a nod to 1976, but this pleasantly retro movie goes back further than that.

When was the last time you saw a romance that didn't have a single kiss until the final crane shot?

I think it was 1958.

Or, thanks to "Silver Linings Playbook," only yesterday.

Blog: philly.com/KeepItReel