David O. Russell might have a reputation for being a hotheaded and temperamental filmmaker, but you can’t deny the man knows how to direct a great movie, and over the last decade he’s reinvented himself as an awards season favorite that assembles some of the most star-studded ensembles imaginable to lend weight to his character and dialogue-heavy work.
If you ignore Accidental Love, which he completely disowned after an assembly cut was released four years after he abandoned the project, then his last four features have earned him a combined total of five Academy Award and seven Golden Globe nominations for writing, directing and producing.
Jennifer Lawrence has become a regular collaborator of his after teaming with Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle and Joy, all of which scored the actress Oscar nods of her own, and she even won for the former. He was actually against the idea of casting her as Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings because he thought she was too young for the part, but it would be safe to say she blew those concerns out of the water.
Silver Linings Playbook follows Bradley Cooper’s Pat Solatano, who ends up living with his parents after spending time in a mental health facility, and seeks to rebuild his life. That’s where Tiffany enters the picture, offering to help Pat reconnect with his estranged wife, but she wants something in return.
The central quartet of Lawrence, Cooper, Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper boast 22 Oscar nominations and three wins between them, so Silver Linings Playbook was never going to be anything other than a powerhouse prestige drama, and almost a decade after earning $236 million at the box office on a $21 million budget, the movie is coming to Netflix next month on June 17th.
