Synopsis: Cameron Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) suffers from bipolar disease. He is married to Maggie (Zoe Saldana), and they have two young daughters, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide). The couple are now living separately and when Maggie decides to study for an MBA for a year she asks Cam to move back in and take care of the children promising that she will return each weekend. The challenges all round are immense.
Whether this film is comedy, drama, or social commentary doesn’t really matter but despite being very well-acted it is a mixed bag which for me suffers from scripting problems. Let’s face it – for a film to resonate, the viewer needs to believe in the characters and the things they say and do. Infinitely Polar Bear tries so hard to be “likeable” that it has its characters, especially Cam and the kids, acting up, acting out, and saying and doing things that seem contrived. The two daughters especially are sophisticated in speech and insight well beyond their years.
Ruffalo throws his all into this one. We really feel his pain, the love for his daughters, his distress at being apart from his beloved wife, and he does manic without restraint. But again I couldn’t believe some of the crazy stuff he does, and – indulge me here – does he have to spend the entire film with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth? On the other hand Saldana's Maggie has a sweetness that works with her strength of character and the actress's chemistry with Ruffalo is convincing.
I could not say the same of the film overall. Writer-director Forbes based it on her own childhood experience so I assume that much of what we see actually happened but the self-conscious cuteness with which it is depicted (Cameron sewing a flamenco dance outfit, his beat-up jalopy, his childish tantrums) undermines our credulity. The extensive cinema verité style use of home movies does little to correct that.
Perhaps I was unfairly expecting a more realistic look at mental illness whereas Forbes wanted to take a relatively light-hearted approach. Or perhaps I was simply unswayed by the consumer-focussed values of mainstream American film-making to which she adheres. Either way I can’t imagine I’ll remember much of this film in years to come.