blanche-2 Mark Ruffalo stars in "Infinitely Polar Bear" along with Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, and Ashley Aufderheide, from 2014, directed by first-time director Maya Forbes. Forbes is a very talented woman I hope to be seeing more from as a director - she's already an established writer and producer.The story takes place in Boston in the late 1970s, where Cam Stuart (Ruffalo) lives with his wife Maggie (Saldana) and their children, Amelia and Faith.Cam is bipolar and job problems lead him to a nervous breakdown. He is institutionalized and then moved to a halfway house. Though he comes from a wealthy family, the money is in a trust. Maggie has a tough time making ends meet. She decides to get her MBA and wins a scholarship to Columbia. Cam is doing okay on lithium and is more on an even keel, so Maggie has him move in with the kids while she goes to New York for eighteen months, returning home on weekends. Her plan is to return to Boston after school and get a good job, which has eluded her thus far.It's a tough adjustment. The place is in disarray, Cam constantly embarrasses his kids for either being too friendly with the neighbors or hanging out with them and their friends, not to mention driving around in a pathetic car.What a wonderful movie told with such warmth and humor. The acting is wonderful all around. Both Ruffalo and Saldana are totally likable, and the kids are great - not cloying at all. The title comes from the kids misunderstanding the term "bipolar."Definitely worth viewing - a wonderful film.

Ian (Flash Review)Ruffalo plays a bi-polar man who has two young kids with a mother and they battle trying to live as a single family unit. Living at around the poverty line, the mother decides to go to business school to support the family. Deciding to leave Ruffalo in charge of the kids during the week for several months. The director portrays the bi- polar man more as an eccentric and never really enlightens the viewer in depth on what it means to have such a condition. The scenes are overly similar when showing his eccentric interactions with his family and never really build to anything; felt very flat. I was like, OK, there he goes again doing something ridiculous. I guess the plot tension asked the question if he will be able to manage the kids and for how long and will he be able to manage his condition? I also didn't feel any of the characters connected with me as having genuine emotions for each other. This was not enjoyable.

huggibear First of all, how did they come up with the title? Was it based on a bi- 'polar' abnormality? Probably! I think this is an excellent movie depicting a family working through 'problems'. All families have some sort of 'problem' or 'challenge' that they either choose to stick with overcoming or give up on. This movie shows us how to relate to some of the problems that families undergo. I recommend this movie to anyone who might be struggling with mental disorders and disabilities because it's a daily and moment-by-moment 'emotional' battle for many in our world. Depression is very common and some people even die from it. What keeps us from that depression is a strong will to focus upon what makes us at our best 'happy' life? Many of us do not know where to put our focus, but if you want to be here in a body, you have to find ways to get through the emotional battles that plague us. This movie is a perfect example that will show you how a family can raise their children and still find some mental and emotional stability through it all. It's a great movie for 'dads' to see and take notice of how 'Mark Ruffalo' handles things. Many dads will resort to alcohol, but that only makes things worse for most because of the depression affect of alcohol. But during his episodes, he never hurts or harms the family, which is the best part of this movie in my honest opinion. I love it because of the 'real life' struggle that affect so many here on earth. Kudos to the writers and if this really was based on a true story by one of the writers, they should have let us know. I don't doubt that is WAS based on a true story, regardless of whether that was known or not.

shlunka Maya Forbes skillfully directs a loving tail about a man's frail grip with his emotions, and with his sanity. Even looser is his connection with his daughters and wife. Mark Ruffalo's character is attempting to reign in more things than an octopi cowboy while drinking enough to whet Nick Nolte's appetite. His character makes me think that Adam Sandler and Hunter S. Thompson hopped in the Brundle teleportation machines to create a fragile but dominating human embodiment of a flailing bee. Or High Fidelity occurring inside your hippocampus set to a groovy soundtrack. The only issue I had with the film was the director's attempt at painting too many biographies in such a short screen time. I related most with Ruffalo's character (being manic depressive myself), and found it very difficult to do this when the true centerpiece of the film rests in the children (who Ruffalo and Saldana also focus on, with an occasional squint at each other for the first half of the film). All in all, a fun movie that doesn't demand much of your time. It's a delicate character study of a brilliant but fragile man's relationship with his initially frightened peers.