Manically Depressed

Normally, I’d suggest that movies rooted in a filmmaker’s experiences make for rotten films. Take a look at Brave, the Pixar flick in which the director was inspired by her relationship with her daughter: Crap movie that can’t decide whether it’s a parent-child love story or a (welcome) feminist parable, and it would be Pixar’s worst if not for Monsters University, which must be based on someone’s personal experience of wanting to fuck an audience.

Or take Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, inspired by his relationship with his brother: bologna of the highest order. And have you heard Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, director of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Dem Titties, talk about how his love of cinema was something he and the main character had in common? His feelings and that wretched movie are enough to make you barf.

But Maya Forbes, who wrote and directed Infinitely Polar Bear, gets a pass. She’s made a great film rooted in her personal experiences—the main character, Cameron (Mark Ruffalo), suffers from bipolar disorder, just like Forbes’ father did—but she’s objective enough, somehow, to let Cameron be a jerk, a terrible father, a great father, a hero, a fuck-up, a drunken reprobate and a ne’er-do-well who does well all at once.

Somehow, all those contradictions work. Maybe Forbes isn’t afraid to let her characters be vulnerable without being precious. Or maybe she’s just a fine writer (hard to say, though—she’s also responsible for The Rocker).

As for story, Cameron is married to Maggie (Zoe Saldana, finally living up to the hype). They reside in Boston with their two young daughters, Amelia and Faith (Imogene Wolodarsky and Ashley Aufderheide, respectively). One day, Cameron has a nervous breakdown, rides a bike around in his underwear, gets fired and tears the engine out of his car. He’s sent to an institution.

When he gets out, Maggie isn’t certain they can live together, but Cameron can’t work and needs a place to stay, so she gets a job to support them while he crashes on the sofa. When Maggie receives a scholarship to study for an MBA at Columbia, she and Cameron agree he can remain with the kids while she lives and studies in New York. She’ll visit on weekends.

As you can imagine, hilarity and heartbreak ensue. Ruffalo plays Cameron to the hilt, riding the line between appropriately manic and terrifyingly manic. He’s funny during his outbursts, but it’s in the quiet moments that he’s most effective, as he sneaks beers and constantly fights with himself over whether to stay on lithium.

Wolodarsky and Aufderheide are Ruffalo’s equals as the kids. Forbes coaxes wonderfully believable performances from them. These girls act as if they’ve been living with bipolar disorder their entire lives.

Whether Infinitely Polar Bear earns its happy ending is a matter of personal taste. But any movie that contains the line “Well, I guess I’ll just tell the Charles River to go fuck itself” in the last five minutes can’t end unhappily, can it?

Directed by Maya Forbes

With Ruffalo, Saldana and Wolodarsky

UA DeVargas 6

R

88 min.