Infinitely Polar Bear

Plot

In the late 1970s, Cameron (Cam) Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) is a Boston man suffering from bipolar disorder. He has had a psychotic break, which has caused him to be fired from his job and hospitalized. To be able to afford to take care of their two young children, Cam's wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana) moves herself and the children to a small rent-controlled apartment, where she struggles to find enough work to support the three of them.

As Cam is rehabilitated, he moves from a halfway house out on his own. Maggie begins to apply to business schools so the family will eventually become more financially secure, for the sake of the children who are attending a third-rate school in a bad part of town. Maggie manages to obtain a scholarship to attend Columbia University, and she asks Cam to take care of their daughters while she moves to New York for 18 months in order to get her M.B.A.. Cam reluctantly agrees.

The girls are embarrassed to live with Cam, who sometimes abandons them in the middle of the night, is aggressively friendly with their neighbors, and starts countless messy projects, making their apartment nearly unlivable. However, his daughters love Cam deeply and try to help him raise them. Cam takes them to visit his grandmother, a wealthy Boston Brahmin who controls the family trust, and who pays the cost of their rent-controlled apartment. After his grandmother tries to give Cam her Bentley, he asks her to instead pay for the girls to be privately educated, but the grandmother refuses.

Maggie begins to near graduation, which Cam hopes will enable them to live like a family once more. However, Cam reveals to Maggie that he has been off his lithium since she left, and Maggie is unable to find a suitable job in Boston. Maggie decides to take a job she has been offered at E. F. Hutton & Co. in New York City, leaving Cam behind in Boston, and taking the girls with her.

Seeing how unhappy the girls will be, and realizing that her new demanding job will force her to work upwards of twelve hours a day, Maggie decides that although she will accept the job, she will leave the children in Boston with Cam, sending money back so that the girls will be able to attend a good private school. A year later the girls are enrolled in private school and Cam continues to take care of them and watch them proudly.

Cast

Production

Amelia Stuart is a fictionalized version of Forbes. Although some people questioned whether Wolodarsky (who had no previous professional acting experience) would be right for the role, Forbes was certain, particularly after seeing her daughter audition with Ruffalo and Saldana.

Forbes told a reporter for USA Today that it was an advantage having her own daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky, play one of the starring roles: "I could make her cry. And I didn't have to worry 'What if I damage this kid forever.' Imogene's part is so demanding because of all the emotional stuff. I would go into a corner with her and I would cry about what the scene was about and tell her why I was crying and what it meant and she'd cry and then we'd go do the scene. She has such a huge heart."

The shooting of the film began on April 9, 2013 in Providence, Rhode Island.

J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk served as executive producers of the film.

Release

After premiering at Sundance, the film was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for major territories in North America and Europe.

The film has played at several film festivals including the Deauville American Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Vancouver International Film Festival. The film was released on June 19, 2015, by Sony Pictures Classics.

Reception

The film has a score of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 65 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film also earned Mark Ruffalo a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Home media

Infinitely Polar Bear was released on DVD & Blu-ray on January 5, 2016.