Infinitely Polar Bear

Writer-director Maya Forbes's autobiographical family comedy is based on her own confusing childhood growing up in 1970s Cambridge, MA. Her father, Donald Cameron Forbes, was manic-depressive or bipolar, once declaring on a hospital admission form that he was “infinitely polar bear.” In this fictionalized take, chain-smoking Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) is impulsive, unpredictable and eccentric. Cam adores his wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), and their two precocious daughters, Faith (Ashley Aufderheide) and Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky). Cam, who comes from a wealthy family, is unable to hold a job. In fact, both Cam and his patrician parents (Keir Dullea, Beth Dixon) are dependent on the matriarch of the Boston blue-blood family, so it falls to Maggie to become the breadwinner. When Maggie gets a scholarship to go after her MBA at Columbia University in New York, troubled Cam must try to hold it together to care for the spirited, grade school-age girls. Ruffalo artfully channels rumpled resentment over the hard choices the family is forced to make, leavened with a mercurial abundance of humor, love, and lithium. Deftly glossing over the darker aspects of mental illness, Forbes helms her first feature film with insight and sensitivity, nicely integrating sequences from some of her late father's Super 8 home movies. An offbeat, feel-good film that tugs at the heartstrings, this is recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary with star Mark Ruffalo, director Maya Forbes, and producer Wally Wolodarsky, an LA Film Festival Q&A with cast and crew (11 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are deleted scenes (4 min.), and a bonus UltraViolet copy of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a fine film.] (S. Granger)