The oddball romance “Silver Linings Playbook” has been named best picture at the Spirit Awards honoring independent film, Hollywood’s last pre-game show before the Academy Awards. 

“Silver Linings Playbook” led the show Saturday with four prizes, including best actress for Jennifer Lawrence and director and screenplay for David O. Russell.

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Lawrence is the best-actress favorite at Sunday’s Oscars for “Silver Linings,” in which she plays a young widow in a new relationship with a man fresh from a mental hospital.

Slideshow: 2013 Oscar nominees

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“The Sessions” earned two acting prizes, for lead actor John Hawkes as a man in an iron lung hoping to lose his virginity and Helen Hunt as the sexual surrogate helping him through it. 

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The best supporting actor award went to Matthew McConaughey as a flamboyant stripper in “Magic Mike.”

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There are some who will think "Silver Linings Playbook" is about ballroom dancing or the Philadelphia Eagles or a dysfunctional family. But underneath the surface quirkiness, it's actually a story about a family dealing with mental illness. And as director David O. Russell revealed, he knows that subject intimately.

Russell explained to TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager that his son Matthew (who has a small role in the film) has had to deal with mood disorders since he was very young. "Nothing comes easily to him, and that makes your heart bigger," he said. "It was a very healing thing to have written the movie ... I learned a great deal about resilience and about the relationship between the father and the son."

Oscar voters seem to feel it's triggered a chord; not only did Russell get a best director nomination, but it's the first movie in 31 years to be nominated in all four acting categories. And while that's gratifying, he says what's more important is that the film has brought him closer to his son. 

"It's a very healing thing that I think will be a touchstone for the rest of our lives," he said. "(This story) we know personally that is filled with hope and shines the light on it and says you don't need to be ashamed of this. You can own it, and you can heal it."

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Previously on the long-running drama we call Awards Season: Ben Affleck's "Argo" is an early Oscar best picture favorite until Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" arrives. Then Affleck gets clotheslined by the directing branch of the Academy leaving "Lincoln" sitting pretty. Until "Argo" surges at the Golden Globes.

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Ben Affleck in "Argo," left, and Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln."

All this brings us to our new episode, also known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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Here's a look at the storylines that could emerge from Sunday's show:

"Lincoln" reemerges as, well, "Lincoln": It wins the ensemble award, reminds that the Globes are just the Globes (a contest reflecting the views of exactly zero Oscar voters), and continues on its presidential way toward the best picture prize on Feb. 24. If you take stock in such things, this is is how oddsmakers and pundits think Sunday will go.

"Argo" gives "Lincoln" a lot to think about: On the heels of its Globes success, it wins the ensemble award, and demonstrates how deep the affection for the 1970s-vibing thriller runs among Affleck's fellow actors, or as they are more properly referred to this time of year: the largest voting branch of the Academy.

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"Silver Linings Playbook" gives "Lincoln" and "Argo" a lot to think about: It wins the ensemble award (an ensemble, mind you, that the aforementioned acting branch of the Academy showered with four nominations), emerges as the new best picture candidate to beat, and reaffirms just how good Harvey Weinstein is at this sort of thing -- i.e., blindsiding Spielberg. (See: "Saving Private Ryan's" stunning 1998 best picture loss to "Shakespeare in Love.")

"Les Miserables" gives oddsmakers a lot to think about: It wins the ensemble award, reclaims its Christmastime mojo and likely perks up on the best picture leader board after falling out of a dead heat with "Lincoln."

"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" gives everyone a lot of to think about: If this no-shot best picture contender, which was not nominated for the Academy's top prize, wins the ensemble award, it will make an unpredictable awards season a real, live mystery.

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Chris Pizzello / AP file

"Lincoln" director Steven Spielberg.

Steven Spielberg ("Lincoln"), Tom Hooper ("Les Miserables"), Kathryn Bigelow ("Zero Dark Thirty"), Ang Lee ("Life of Pi") and Ben Affleck ("Argo"): There were no surprises in Tuesday's nominations for the 65th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards.

Unless, that is, you're a fan of "Django Unchained," "The Master" or "Silver Linings Playbook," in which case there were unhappy surprises.

Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and David O. Russell were among those who failed to rate in the most critical of Oscar tuneups.

'Silver Linings Playbook' has better luck with Writers Guild

The DGA class of 2013 runs the gamut of past winners to Affleck, who has his first-ever nod from the filmmaking group.

All five nominees and their films have long been counted as safe bets for the Academy Awards. Nominations for the big show of big shows are due out Thursday.

The DGA Awards is unsurpassed as an Oscar predictor: It's been more than a decade since a DGA winner didn't rate the same prize from the Academy.

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The exclusions of Tarantino, Anderson and Russell are notable, but not necessarily surprising, with only Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" considered a top-tier Best Picture candidate.

If the DGA field holds at the Oscars, then the road gets even longer for those on the outside looking in. The last film to win Best Picture without a nominated director was 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy."

The 65th DGA Awards are scheduled to be presented Feb. 2.

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Hollywood is literally getting into the Spirit of the awards season. The nominations for the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards were announced Tuesday, and "Silver Linings Playbook" and "Moonrise Kingdom" lead all hopefuls with five nods apiece.

In what essentially amounted to a major sweep, "Silver Linings" nabbed nods in all five major categories: Best Feature, Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Director (David O. Russell) and Best Screenplay.

Oscar-buzz cheat sheet: Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook neck and neck?

It'll be going up for Best Feature against "Moonrise Kingdom," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Bernie" and "Keep the Lights On."

The nominations also included a slew of other boldface names: Rashida Jones scored a screenplay nomination (along with cowriter Will McCormack) for "Celeste and Jesse Forever"; Helen Hunt is in the race for Best Supporting Female for her revealing performance in "The Sessions"; and Bruce Willis nabbed a Best Supporting Male nom for "Moonrise Kingdom."

One pleasant surprise? Willis will be going mano a mano with "Magic Mike's" Matthew McConaughey in that category. Guess the stripper bonanza wasn't all about beefcake pecs!

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The Spirit Awards are often considered a hipper, more buttoned-down antidote to the Oscars, with stars showing up barefoot and kicking back at a seaside tent along Santa Monica beach the day before the more glammed-up Academy Awards.

Although the Spirit's winners often tend to skew art house and diverge from the year's big Oscar victors, last year's crop was uncharacteristically in sync with the Academy's picks: Eventual Oscar champ "The Artist" also nabbed Spirit wins for Best Picture and Best Director.

Take a look back at last year's big Oscar fashions

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Actress Jennifer Lawrence is all too familiar with Hollywood's obsession and expectations when it comes to the waistlines of female stars. Shortly after she was cast as Katniss in "The Hunger Games," she faced criticism from those who thought she was too curvy to play the character.

That didn't matter to Lawrence. In a recent interview with Elle magazine, she stressed that she didn't want young girls skipping dinner "to look like Katniss." She even claimed that by Hollywood standards she's "obese."

And as she told NBC’s Andrea Canning in an interview that aired Wednesday morning on TODAY, she doesn't plan to change in order to please Tinseltown.

"I've never really dieted or wanted to diet, or anything, and I just feel like, it's something that really overwhelms our industry in an unfortunate way," Lawrence explained. "It just kind of becomes this distracting dark cloud."

A cloud that she finds particularly disturbing.

"I grew up with tabloids and seeing it on TV, and who's losing this much weight, how to lose this weight this fast, and it's just … it's kind of gross," she said. "And I'm just ready for it to stop."

Until then, Lawrence is happy to buck that trend. And that's not the only Hollywood standard she avoids.

Lawrence, who's currently the focus of early Oscar buzz for her role opposite Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook," doesn't have any interest in participating in the usual young-Hollywood hijinks.

"I'm very boring, and (the paparazzi) know that," she said. "Like, all the paparazzi leave my house at like, 5.pm., because they know I'm not going anywhere."

Those who would like a glimpse of the star can get it Wednesday, as "Silver Linings Playbook" opens in theaters nationwide.  

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Bradley Cooper may have passed People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive torch to successor Channing Tatum earlier this week, but Cooper doesn't need an official sexy title to prove his appeal. All he has to do is speak … in French.

OK, sure, the actor's English is pretty swoon-worthy too, but when the Cooper switched to his second language during his Friday morning visit to TODAY, there was no denying that it works for the star.

And as if speaking the language of love wasn't enough, Cooper also pulls out all the stops in his new film, "Silver Linings Playbook," by showing off his ballroom dancing moves alongside co-star Jennifer Lawrence.

Waltzes and tangos aside, his character in "Playbook," Pat, isn't quite as charming as Cooper is in real life. After all, Pat struggles to cope with anger and day-to-day life after leaving a mental institution. Still, despite the obvious differences, Cooper's own mother saw some parallels between her son's off-screen persona and the one on-screen.

"He's got anger management issues and a song can trigger a violent episode -- yeah, it's very autobiographic," he joked. "I took that (comparison by my mom) harshly, I've got say, because she meant it. I walked downstairs after we did a very intense scene and that's when she said, 'Bradley, it's like you're not acting.' And I thought, 'What does that say?!'"

See for yourself when "Silver Linings Playbook," also starring Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker, opens in theaters nationwide Nov. 21. And to see more memorable moments from Cooper -- from sports talk to Barry Manilow mentions -- check out the clip above.

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