Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I’ve seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I’ll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I’ll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Silver Linings Playbook

Of all the twaddle and passable entertainment that Harvey Weinstein has flogged over the last several years, Silver Linings Playbook is hands-down his best. The story of a bipolar man released to his parents’ care is gently affecting, seldom reverting to the typical manipulative nature of romantic comedies.

Bradley Cooper, as the bipolar man, is superb. I’ve discarded much of his work in the past, largely because it’s so dreadfully bland and unexciting. Whether or not he has good looks has little to do with his capability to act and the one minor opportunity he got to do something different in Valentine’s Day was merely acceptable. Here, he finally digs into a character’s recesses and pulls out a fine performance that is charming, visceral and uncharacteristic of anything that’s come before. He’s complimented well by Jennifer Lawrence who has to be one of the most genuinely likable female leads since Julia Roberts burst onto the scene in Steel Magnolias.

Lawrence is fifteen years Cooper’s junior, but it’s hard to see her as anything but his equal. She brings out the tender and feisty side she’s been edging around in each of her performances. As she grows as an actress, each successive performance seems to be an improvement on the last, building on her short-term experience with wit, beauty and unbounded talent. If she continues to improve from here, she’ll easily eclipse the Julia Roberts’ career and forge her way towards one that could be easily compared to Elizabeth Taylor.

David O. Russell takes a different tack for his film that blends mental illness, football and ballroom dancing. The film is a heartfelt look at two emotionally damaged people, wrapped up in their own neuroses and learning how to walk again. He couldn’t have found better leads in Cooper and Lawrence, but adding a emotionally engaging Robert De Niro to the mix makes for a satisfying film-going experience.

The Impossible

It’s the worst Christmas movie ever…but I’m not talking about the quality. Set during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, when more than 230,000 people all along the southern coast of Asia were killed on December 26, 2004, a young family vacationing during the Christmas holiday are caught up in the massive natural disaster. The film follows the entire family as it struggles to reunite, neither side believing the other has survived, but search unendingly nevertheless. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor play the heads of the family while 16-year-old Tom Holland as their eldest son takes center stage in this harrowing film.

This is Juan Antonio Bayona’s second film. Credited as J.A. Bayona, his first film was the celebrated 2007 feature The Orphange which earned him high critical acclaim. Five years later, he’s crafted another mesmerizing film that puts the natural disaster film into stark contrast with the star-studded features of the past. In an opening scene that can only be described as one of the greatest in film history, the family is roiled by the deadly tsunami and its secondary wave as we watch Watts and Holland submerged, battered and beaten by the rushing water. The sequence is breathtaking in its power and raw emotional energy and Bayona wisely avoids dramatic underscore in conveying the scene.

The subsequent movie involves little more than searching, worrying and emotional strife, but feels as taut and nerve wracking as the overture. It’s a film that doesn’t have many places to go, but feels forceful and determined to get the audience there. Watts gives one of her finest performances to date and McGregor is surprisingly adept at emotional sincerity, but it’s Holland who handily captures the film’s grief and turmoil, his eyes conveying every frightening and remorseful event that follows. Keep an eye on this kid, he could be going far.

Compliance

How far would you go under the authority of someone else? From a young age, we are conditioned to obey and comply with various authority figures: teachers, policemen, bosses; and yet, where does humanity and compassion enter into our lives. How far will we let obeisance go before we challenge our instructors.

Craig Zobel’s second film is a startling look at how we cede power to authority and the lengths to which we will go to adhere to requirements even when we question just how far things are going. Ann Dowd is the central focus of the film, a fast food restaurant manager informed by a police officer over the phone that one of her employees has stolen money from a customer’s purse. Convinced that the police will be on their way shortly, she agrees to go through a number of increasingly extreme steps to make sure she isn’t at odds with the law.

From forcing her young employee to turn out her pockets and eventually to submit to a strip search, all without ever having confirmed the identity of the voice on the phone, Dowd’s manager Sandra displays no genuine malice. However, as her actions become more erratic and controlled, not realizing just how far beyond human decency she has exceeded, we begin to question whether Sandra’s compliance is part of her upbringing or if her base instincts emerge while in control of another human being. Dowd delivers a convincing performance, subtly shifting as the film progresses from put-upon manager to an extension of villainy. Through her performance, we are both supportive and reviled by her actions and while we have the puppet master to despise, how much slack can we give Sandra for just “following orders?”

The Deep Blue Sea

Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston are perfectly cast as the wife of a prominent judge and her soldier lover in an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s previously-filmed play about a woman’s emotional investment in two men: one stoic, reserved and successful; the other passionate and physical.

Weisz puts everything on the table as Hester Collyer, an emotionally repressed woman who finally finds a way to unbridle her passions while having an affair with another man. The film doesn’t have a lot of places to go, but Hester’s soul is laid bare in the film, exposed before an audience as she teeters on the edge of oblivion, nearly succumbing to her suicidal tendencies while struggling relate to a man whose passion for her has slowly cooled, setting them back into the position in which she began with her husband.

Although much of the attention this Oscar season has been placed on the wildly, and rightfully, praised Weisz, Hiddleston deserves a great deal of credit for creating such an injured character. Freddie Page survived the war, but has come back emotionally wounded. By engaging in a torrid affair with a married woman, he unleashes his pent-up fears and frustrations, but as he finally grows accustomed to a civilian life, her emotional neediness and revealed attempt to commit suicide drive him farther away from her. His performance deserves equivalent applause.