Stars 2

Here’s a Hollywood movie that celebrates the endearing, warm, funny and romantic side of mental illness.

The Hangover star Bradley Cooper, plays Pat Solitano, a bipolar sufferer released into the bosom of his loving family, headed by the OCD afflicted Pat Snr, Robert De Niro.

While trying to woo back his straying wife, Pat meets Jennifer Lawrence’s beautiful but equally troubled Tiffany, and as the two bond over medication, law breaking and ball-room dancing, a complicated situation soon develops.

This emotionally dishonest disaster wants to be a sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill while simultaneously using their wacky behaviour as a springboard for humour.

The humour is weak, the violence misplaced,  the romance cliched and the the Dirty Dancing Over the Cuckoo’s Nest finale is such a badly judged mash-up of low comedy and cringing sentimentality that I was generating my own anger issues.