Yesterday evening three minutes of David O. Russell’s THE SILVER LINING PLAYBOOK were shown by Weinstein Company at Cannes. Select journalists were invited to a private party where the Weinsteins presented footage from their three most anticipated holiday offerings: Quentin Tarantino’s slave-era Western Django Unchained; Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (allegedly patterned after the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard); and David O. Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
According to those who have seen the footage, all three films look really, really promising and Jennifer Lawrence stole the trailer of “The Silver Linings Playbook”! Here’s Vulture’s report:
The Silver Linings Playbook
Even before anyone had seen a lick of David O. Russell’s follow-up to The Fighter, the chemistry between leads Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence had apparently proved notable enough to lead them to an immediate reteam on Susanne Bier’s next film, Serena. The Silver Linings trailer, then, is proof positive that they bring good things out of each other: The actors, who are so charmingly self-deprecating as themselves on talk shows, come at each other with a spiky, loopy heat.Cooper plays a lower-class loony tune recovering from a breakdown (who freaks out when his therapist plays trigger song “My Cherie Amour”), while J.Law is the feisty woman whom he meets on the outside, an equally screwed-up type who can go toe-to-toe with him when it comes to rattling off the mood-altering drugs they’ve been prescribed.
Silver Linings isn’t geek bait — the Django reel got more laughs even though Silver Linings is more of an outright comedy — but it’s promising and well cast, with supporting actor Chris Tucker cleaved out of the Rush Hour franchise for the first time in ages and Julia Stiles bringing swollen-faced similarities as J Law’s sister. Also, Bradley Cooper’s parents are played by Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro, and apparently there’s some sort of dramatic dance sequence featuring Lawrence and Cooper? Well fine, we’re in. Before he pressed play on these cut downs, Harvey Weinstein bragged that the films are “three of the best things we’ve ever been associated with.” He’s pulled the same trick before at Cannes with films like Nine and Gangs of New York ? so a brief reel shouldn’t be taken as any sort of guarantee ? but after tonight, our anticipation has only gotten more acute. Forget Cannes … is it fall yet?
