I'm hesitant to write this review. It might very well turn out to be a colorful display of my close-mindedness, but so be it. I had an emotional reaction to the film and it might be worth writing about so the future me can look back on how much of an asshole I was and have a good laugh.
This film was awful. Let me explain. I loved how it started out. Bradley Cooper is a wonderful actor and watching him suffer the symptoms of bi-polar disorder was striking. The flashes of violence, the spontaneous destruction that surrounded him, the constant tension I felt every second he was delivering dialog was really a joy to experience for someone who appreciates the intricacies of human dysfunction. But, every other detail in the film was pure romantic comedy fodder.
His father is a bookie who regularly puts the family's life savings on the line over football games, but in a perpetually endearing way. His mother is possibly the most cliched and forgetful character in film history. He has a wife with a restraining order against him, which could have been a wonderful source of conflict, but devolved into a silly subplot of him not being able to write her a letter. He has a new love interest who manipulates him into a dance competition who is devoid of the slightest ounce of charisma outside of her bouncing bust. The love interest has her own psychological issues but they're never explored beyond a few awkward situations and a few unexpected lines of dialog. There's a more successful brother who holds his life's accomplishments over Cooper's head, but this isn't even the slightest bit realistic because the bitter sentiment is covered with one dialog exchange in the most heavy-handed way possible.
I think this is what hurts my perception of the film the most, the heavy-handedness. It's as if the writer had the intention of covering as many human quirks as possible without actually exploring any of them enough to make them feel real. And to top it off the major conflict of the film is a football game and a dance competition... So you end the film exactly the way it began. None of the characters grew at all, they just celebrated over an arbitrary victory. Cooper professed his love to his new love interest and the credits rolled. I get that it wouldn't have been pretty to mention that two psychologically unstable people might not have the smoothest chemistry down the line, but to not even hint at it is unforgivable.
This is a fairy tale where everything works out in the end, just like everyone had hoped. Love, money, success, and everyone is happy. This is not a reflection of the human condition. This movie is fluff, popcorn drama, meaningless, and it'll be forgotten. Cooper earns a point for his performance, but this was damn close to being my first 0.
1/5
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