How dispiriting it is to see a really dysfunctional working-class family yet again: that awful East Coast gritty old city neighborhood, their lives like sagging wet paper bags, the kitschy sentimental decor of stifling tiny living rooms. And no one really has anything to do.
Well, Russell really does get all that quite right, doesn’t he?
Oh, the plot. It’s about fanatic team loyalty, an amateur dance contest, off-track betting, Philly cheesesteaks and infidelity. Bradley Cooper, cast in a serious role (supposedly he was fabulous at the Williamstown Playhouse starring as The Elephant Man) jogs in a trash bag (I am trash) and makes wildly funny and boundary-violating remarks frequently.
Jennifer Lawrence seems stunningly convincing as a depressive widow. I’m not sure she was really smart enough to contrive the device by which she heals Cooper, but it was kind and doomed to fail but it doesn’t.
Her mercy is tender. I wish the happy ending hadn’t been such a certainty. But then, they all had to keep living with the the real elephant-in-the-room man, Cooper’s father, played by Robert de Niro, innocently, truly, madly deeply bonkers. So even though he gets to buy the restaurant he wants, we suspect he will bungle it, and the duration of their victory will be shorter than they think.
So, the silver lined cloud may have a few more bumps left for the ride after the curtain rings down on the lucky winner/loser victory scene which closes the film: a Sunday afternoon TV family football gathering. All is the same yet all is changed.
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