I love Bradley Cooper in everything I've seen him in, which I think is pretty much everything he's done so far, but have to admit that when the flick started I couldn't stop feeling like I was watching him do an out of character character. It was as if the entire world his character lived in didn't notice he's such a hunk he was voted sexiest man in the world.
Then his father comes in, played by Robert DiNiro doing his unfortunately way too familiar shtick. So I couldn't help thinking I'm watching DiNiro play a character. The woman playing his wife I didn't recognize, Jacki Weaver, maybe because as I later discovered she's from Australia. Fooled me though, I totally bought her character and was impressed with every choice she made as an actor. She was totally coming across as the person she was playing.
And then Jennifer Lawrence entered the movie and everything got more real, even Cooper's and DiNiro's characters. She was like a force of nature no one could resist, least of all me. She reminds me of Jennifer Jason Leigh when she was first getting my attention by making every character she played so real I wrote that she was the Marlon Brando of her generation. Now Lawrence is the Jennifer Jason Leigh of hers.
Only different. Lawrence comes across, even in this quirky SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK character (as she did in WINTER'S BONE and THE HUNGER GAMES) as so much more grounded in a definite sense that she knows who she is, even though in real life she has almost nothing in common with the characters she plays. What I mean is her characters have a strength that's based on integrity, which wasn't always the case in the ones Leigh played in her heyday. Or Brando.
Which means that Lawrence is a great character actor and a great movie star. I can't wait to see what she does next. But in the meantime, watching her in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK will do.
3 comments:
First learned of Jackie Weaver when I saw "Animal Kingdom" a few years ago. The flick is very gritty and highly praised.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/animal_kingdom/
Weaver was awesome, and garnered an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Looking forward to seeing her in Silver Linings.
~ Willy
Damn, how'd I miss that? or forget it? She has some moments in this flick that are so subtle they break my heart. Her eyes, for me, do much more than all of DiNiro's gestures and facial expression. Don't get me wrong, DiNiro has given some of the greatest movie performances, but he also is a lot more predictable and has been than say a Daniel Day Lewis or Jennifer Lawrence etc.
Will watch it. I used to love deNiro. Well, not him, but the parts he played in movies. But then something happened. Where he became a deNiro cartoon of sorts. Or maybe it's because he got so big it's hard not to see him that way. He certainly tried hard to make himself different, taking on silly roles. But still. That said, he's still and excellent performer. Bradley Cooper is great. Her kid of comes across as a nerd trying to be a wolf. Maybe that's his charm. Maybe that's why women thinks he is the sexiest man oin the planet. He is both tame and wild.
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