Silver Linings: The Three R's --- Raw, Real and Raunchy

The web is now full of articles of why women hate Anne Hathaway, but love Jennifer Lawrence. It is not just a matter of Dior versus Prada. While Anne is seen as stiff and contrived, Jennifer is embraced for being spontaneous, fresh and effortlessly fun. Take her answer when she was questioned about what ran through her head when she fell on her way to receive her Oscar. "It was a bad word that I can't say, that starts with F."

Though I knew that her performances in The X Men prequel and The Hunger Games were vivid and energetic, I wanted to find out for myself if her turn in Silver Linings Playbook was worthy, and impressive enough to beat heavy hitters such veterans as Sally Field and Emmanuele Riva, and to outclass Jessica Chastain and irrepressible record setter Quvemshane Wallis.

So this weekend, some friends and I caught Silver Linings Playbook. Jennifer makes her entrance when the movie 's conflict has been firmly established. Her character likes to ambush Pat, Bradley Cooper's character, while he is running, and in a similar vein, her performance creeps up on you. When she utters the line, "Now, that 's an emotion." you realize that you care for the persona she has masterfully constructed on screen.

Maybe it wasn't a Meryl Streep level of win, wherein she hits it out of the park so clearly that she is the only winner. What it was, IMHO, was a performance that captured the uncertainty and ennui of our zeitgeist, a lost soul that so wants to be found, and that s why she got the votes. Or maybe Harvey Weinstein just really knows how to campaign for an Oscars win.