Basically, the story follows Cooper as Pat Peoples, a guy freshly released from an extended stay in a psych ward after losing his wife, having a mental breakdown, and running into trouble with the law.  Moving back in with his parents, Pat attempts to pull his life together and maintain a healthy attitude, a difficult process until he finds an unlikely ally in Tiffany, a neighbor whose struggling through her own emotional hardships.

That summation makes it all sound a bit clean and potentially maudlin, so check out the trailer below or in high definition at Yahoo! Movies to get a feel for how Russell is grounding the drama:

Soon, all movies will feature Jennifer Lawrence.  And they'll probably be better for it.

After departing the seemingly doomed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, David O. Russell eventually lined up this adaptation of the Matthew Quick novel as his first feature since the commercial career-high represented by The Fighter.  Between that more conventional drama and previous efforts like Flirting With Disaster, I Heart Huckabees, Spanking the Monkey, and the ever-underrated Three Kings, Russell's proven himself to be a writer-director with a unique voice and sensibility.  While this Silver Linings Playbook trailer plays more to the uplifting aspects of it all, the blue-collar texture and sense of humor on display are very promising.  Also, Cooper's proven his charismatic movie star qualities, but he's doing some  (capital A) Acting here and doing it with solid comedic timing.

Silver Linings Playbook is scheduled to hit theaters November 21st.