Sometimes life falls off its dreary grid and takes on the texture and flavor of strawberry chiffon cake. That's kind of what happens when watching "Silver Linings Playbook": The more this romantic comedy-drama about an ex-teacher with mental-health problems and the people around him progresses, the more you're glad to be alive, gratified to be at the movies and ready to love the world.
I realize this is a monstrously contradictory statement considering that almost everyone in "Silver Linings Playbook" spend most of their screen time disturbed, disordered and confused. These people — a circle of lower-middle-class Philadelphia locals — have huge problems, mostly of the mental variety, and they can get pretty unpleasant.
But director David O. Russell (working from a novel by Matthew Quick) has an unmatchable knack for catching snappish, fly-off-the-handle moments, as demonstrated in his superb previous work "The Fighter." In Russell's hands, those moments can turn sweetly funny or tender or vulnerable, and though no one pulls their punches in "Silver Linings Playbook" they somehow always feel like kisses.