I'm partial to, and have a personal interest in, movies about mental illness particularly bipolar/manic depression. This was of particular interest to me because it is about a parent with bipolar and about the kids of a bipolar parent. These movies tend to focus on young single people, so this was refreshing and different.
Infinitely Polar Bear is a family drama about a sorta single bipolar dad struggling to raise his two daughters while his sorta wife earns her MBA in New York City. The film is set in Boston in the late 1970s and told mainly from the perspective of the two daughters.
Mark Ruffalo is the heart and soul of the film, and the girls are excellent. I love Zoe Saldana, so really, this little film is stacked.
I would have like the film to be a little bit longer and slower, it could have taken its time but at the same time its manic pace was more than well-suited overall.
Ruffalo manages to play the manic panics, the frantic desperation, and the rages with mastery. This is not easy to pull off without veering into overly melodramatic "danger" and "violent" territory. I liked that it focused on the mania and not so much the depression. I was also so pleased to not be really scared at any point during the film. There are some reckless events, but nothing too dire and I appreciate that.
That said, the film could have dug in a bit more and fleshed some things out especially in terms of race and poverty.
I also highly recommend Mr. Jones starring Richard Gere as another stellar rendering of manic depression. It's quite remarkable.
4/5