21 November 2012, 13:42 Culture

Real crazy people don't scream

The film My Boyfriend Is Crazy by David O. Russell is being released

Vladimir Lyashenko close

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The romantic tragicomedy “My Boyfriend Is Crazy” starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro is being released.

Sent to a psychiatric hospital for eight months, schoolteacher Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) reads a love letter to his wife in front of the window, cheers up in group therapy and secretly spits out pills, but despite the persuasion of doctors, his mother ( Jacki Weaver ) takes him out of the hospital on her own responsibility. . Extremely emotional as a result of his drug withdrawal, Pat is obsessed with reuniting with his wife, but it turns out that she is protected from him by a court order. In order to somehow distract the ex-patient and protect him from returning to the ward, his best friend introduces him to Tiffany (The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence ) - she lost her husband and also doesn’t get along well with reality.

The novel about love and schizophrenia (the original title “Silver Linings Playbook” can be literally translated as “A Collection of Rays of Hope”) was filmed by the master of multi-figure compositions and stories about confused relationships, David O. Russell. His action comedy “Three Kings,” about the soldiers’ search for Hussein’s gold, George Clooney, starring turned into a humanistic pamphlet. In Heartbreakers, existentialist private investigators set out to investigate “strange” coincidences, turning everyday life into a network of absurd circumstances. And based on real events, “The Fighter,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as boxing brothers, was nominated for six Oscars and won two for supporting roles.

The comedy in Russell's new film is amusing, the morbid is disturbing, and the mixture of the two is pleasantly surprising.

It's funny, of course, when Pat bursts into his parents' bedroom at 4 a.m. to complain about Ernest Hemingway. But when this scene is repeated and develops into complete madness in connection with the search for the wedding tape? Plus, the director in every possible way emphasizes the nature of the main character’s illness with cinematic techniques: he turns the camera, looks for a more alarming angle, does not go into the details of the backstory, but gives them out in portions of flashbacks, each of which adds an important element to the overall puzzle.

Most often in movies, schizophrenics are complex intellectuals with problems, although in reality the disease does not distinguish smart people.

Pat, despite being a history teacher, takes on Hemingway only after the clinic: “A Farewell to Arms” is included in the program according to which his beloved wife taught the children. As soon as the last page is turned, the book flies out the window with a clang. Pat is angry: he is trying to find support in the world for a bright future, trying to be positive, clinging to those very rays of hope, and the bastard Hemingway kills the hero’s beloved in the finale! And this book is given to teenagers to read?! Laughter, of course, but you can understand the guy.

A mentally ill person as the main character of a rom-com is only half the battle: the environment is chosen accordingly, so you quickly understand how difficult it must have been for the hero even before the incident that drove him to the madhouse.

Actually, there are no mentally healthy people here.

The father ( Robert De Niro ), a fanatical fan of the local Eagles football team from Philadelphia, worked at the stadium, but often beat up fans of other teams and now sits at home, betting money on the victories of his favorites and observing intricate rituals to attract good luck.

The best friend pretends to be a happy family man, while he hits the walls in the garage listening to Metallica and Megadeath to relieve tension. And then there’s Tiffany: either she’ll burst into tears, or she’ll offer to sleep, or she’ll jump out from behind a tree during her morning jog. Lawrence demonstrated her acting potential in the independent drama Winter's Bone, and is now consolidating her success as a rising star.

The fact that they form an organic duet with Cooper becomes clear from the very first scene, when the couple enlivens a boring family dinner by turning to the topic that unites the two: “Haloperidol? It makes me cringe." - “Exactly. Did you take clozapine? And further in the text. Playing people with problems, both successfully avoid bad Hollywood drama and bring out the madness not with hysterics and grimaces, but with demonic behavior in the eyes and psychophysiology. In a crazy world, anyone can scream, but real crazy people need something more, and these guys have it.