Director: Maya Forbes
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide
Running time: 90 minutes
Certificate: 15
Otherwise known as Daddy Cool in France, Mark Ruffalo certainly knows how to play it cool in Infinitely Polar Bear, a touching story pouring light on bipolar disorder.
Cam (Ruffalo) and Maggie (Saldana), along with their two children Amelia (Wolodarsky) and Faith (Aufderheide), appear to be the typical, happy, nuclear American family…if you ignore Cam’s bipolar/manic depressive episodes. After Cam is fired from his job, Maggie decides she’s had enough and moves herself and the children into a tiny apartment in the city, so she can search for work.
When Cam is released from his rehabilitation centre, Maggie decides it’s time she did something for herself and applies to college to gain a business degree. After being accepted to Columbia University, she leaves Amelia and Faith in Cam’s hands, with a promise to visit at the weekends. But it doesn’t take long before Cam’s parental control flies out of the window, along with his patience, temper control and common sense…
With mental illness still (sadly) considered a taboo subject, doused in stigma and an ‘I’ll be okay’/stiff upper lip attitude, Ruffalo‘s honest portrayal of someone with bipolar is – at times – uncomfortable to watch. Switching quickly between a stable, responsible father-figure into a child-like mess, Ruffalo‘s Cam is definitely interesting to watch, as we never quite know how he’s going to respond to a situation. Add in Amelia and Faith, two strong-minded, strong-willed, charming little girls, and the odds certainly are against him.
As Maggie struggles to find work, it’s down to Cam to grovel to his wealthy relatives about their money woes, stating that the girls would be far happier at a private school. He tries his best to keep his cool, but with his bipolar always present (almost acting as a background character) he finds it difficult to keep things under control, whether it be an attempt to cook dinner or to help Maggie land a job.
The only thing letting Infinitely Polar Bear down is the story’s reliance on money. While it’s completely understandable and expected that Ruffalo and Saldana‘s characters would have troubles, the idea that their lives would be made infinitely better with a shedload of cash or private school tuition is just a little too dreamy for me. Money definitely won’t ‘cure’ Cam’s depression, that’s for sure.
An upbeat, lively film, Infinitely Polar Bear lets Ruffalo show off his talents, proving just how good he really is.
Infinitely Polar Bear is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday 25th January 2016.
