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VERDICT: Silver Linings Playbook is a heartfelt, hilarious, high anxiety, and ultimately redemptive film that expressed mental illness more honestly than I've ever seen it displayed in cinema. Jennifer Lawrence is a powerhouse; she and Bradley Cooper dominate and electrify the screen. The supporting cast only strengthened the intrigue. Such talent, combined with the story's heart, caused me to leave the theater grinning a mile wide all the way into next week.
I have got to get my sleep schedule back on track. I restart my college classes soon, I need to be awake for my nine-o-clock Christian Trad. class. Yes, I am taking Bible classes, because yes, I am studying for an undergrad degree in pastoral ministry. My master's degree will be counseling. I am going to write and be a counselor at the same time. Just a small tidbit about myself. :) To confirm, I am a Christian who watches non-Christian movies for their stories and I am not bothered by language or anything. I never understand when Christians limit themselves like that, because there are so many beautiful things that people have created that deserve exploring. Just because it doesn't have a Jesus label on it doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.
I understand that there are certain things I shouldn't expose myself to as a Christian, and I do limit myself moderately, but I also understand that I need to know how things really are in life and work with that. If I dwell on how things should be rather than how they are, I will always be miserable.
Silver Linings Playbook first began as a best-selling book by Matthew Quick, then was adapted for the big screen and directed by David O. Russell. Following an eight month stint in a mental institution for beating up his (now ex) wife's lover, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) is set on getting in shape, finding silver linings (hence the title), dealing with being bipolar, and reuniting with his estranged ex-wife, Nikki (Brea Bee), despite the restraining order she placed against him. In his household lives Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), a severely superstitious and OCD Eagles fan, and Delores (Jacki Weaver), the supposedly sanest one in their family, who holds the entire dysfunctional household together. One day while Pat is out running and wearing a garbage bag ("to sweat"), his friend Ronnie (John Ortiz) invites him to dinner per his wife Veronica (Julia Stiles). Pat agrees, and this is where he meets (and has a rather intense initial staredown with) Veronica's younger sister Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany's got her own issues to deal with; her husband died recently (a fact Pat never fails to remind her of) and she battles depression. Together they form a rather explosive but obvious chemistry. Tiffany offers to contact Pat's ex-wife illegally for him if he participates in a dance contest with her. The rest, as they say, is history.
OTHER CAST MEMBERS: Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher, Shea Whigham, Paul Herman, Dash Mihok, Matthew Russell, Cheryl Williams, Patrick McDade
I had been holding off on writing a review of one of my all-time favorite actress' movies because I was afraid I would just gush over her, like I always do. I love Jennifer Lawrence. I think she's an amazing actress and she seems like a sweet and genuine person. Okay, I got it out of the way. For now. There will be more later.
Anyway, I heard about this movie because of her, and since I am a dedicated fangirl, I eagerly awaited the film's release. The limited release thing was frustrating, but once I finally managed to get to a theater, I saw the movie. And I enjoyed it so much, I saw it two more times.
Silver Linings Playbook is nothing like you might have expected.
It's about mental illness, which the trailers decided to leave out, probably due to the fact that it's a subject that Hollywood never really seems to know how to deal with. From the outside, it just looks like another one of those predictable and stupid little rom-coms with two down-on-their-luck people falling in love and living happily ever after and having babies and all that jazz. In Silver Linings, thankfully, none of this takes place.
This movie is about two very screwed up and hurting people falling in love while actively avoiding their feelings for each other and being as intimate as possible through all of the explosive conversations they have. It could be categorized as a romantic comedy except for two-thirds of the movie is actually rather dramatic. David O. Russell does something really wonderful here; mental illness isn't made out to be a fun little gimmick or a complete downer to the story. It is a very honest look at how mental illness affects its victims, as well as suggesting that we all have at least a little bit of crazy inside us. In this way, it sort of defies categorization.
It is really to Bradley Cooper's credit that he managed to play this character so well. Pat's bipolarity might seem like it's trying to be passed off as a comic moment (I always got uncomfortable when people were laughing during those parts), but for people who understand the nature of bipolar disorder, it's actually poignantly humorous. It's the same when it comes to Pat's delusions; you know that Nikki has completely deserted him. You know she's never coming back. Yet he tells everyone, time and time again, that he and Nikki will find their way back to each other and that they are very much in love. The most heartbreaking part of it is that Pat is a sweet character, and it's painful to watch him so hopeful in his terminal goals. Tiffany is a different case entirely, and I am not surprised that Jennifer Lawrence has been nominated or won going on ten awards for this role. Tiffany is unrestrained, volatile, feisty, foul-mouthed. Yet underneath all that is a very sensitive young woman who is just looking for some kind of stability. She loves Pat and you know it, but she challenges everything he believes and is always pushing every single one of his buttons. And it isn't made out to be all cute, like "aw, she pushes all his buttons, how adorable." Tiffany is borderline cruel in how she calls Pat out on his hypocrisy and lack of a filter. Coincidentally, Pat kind of does the same thing to Tiffany, if in a completely different way.
B-Coop and J-Law have electric chemistry, and as a result they are playing a married couple in a movie called The Falling, coming out later this year. "We'll have the divorce movie coming out afterward," joked Lawrence in an interview.
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It's a very high anxiety film. One minute two people will be talking normally, then one of them will say something tactless and everything that can go wrong does. And that doesn't just happen between Pat and Tiffany, though the majority of the explosive conversations do take place between these two. From their second encounter (he calls her a big slut) to the scene at the diner (it begins with Tiffany offering to get Nikki a letter from Pat and quickly progresses to Tiffany pushing everything off of their table, screaming obscenities and showing Pat her middle fingers through the window as she is leaving), and then to a surprisingly warm scene on the tail end of their diner fiasco (in which Tiffany stands there with him and calms him down before she apologizes for losing it), these two have very vehement chemistry. Right behind them are the interactions between Pat and his parents; waking them up to rant about Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is definitely comic, whether or not it was necessarily meant to be, but waking them up to find his wedding video (and freaking out because they never find it) is anything but comic a few minutes in. It goes from Pat talking fast and searching feverishly to all three of them yelling, Pat getting beat up by his father, and a police officer coming into their house to stop the source of the commotion.
Props to the Academy for nominating them both, because they truly deserve it.
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The supporting cast have their own quirks; Ronnie feels suffocated by his job, his newborn baby daughter, and his icy wife Veronica, who seems to always need to control every aspect of her husband's life as well as her own. Pat's friend Danny (aka "Holy crap! Chris Tucker can act! Who would have guessed?") has ADD, anxiety, and was institutionalized for combining meth and alcohol. In short, they all collide and bounce off of each other's energy like pinballs in a life machine. In a particularly crazy scene, Pat faces Pat Sr. and his wrath when the Eagles lose and he loses a lot of money, only for Tiffany to arrive in the middle of his tirade and scream in Pat's face about him missing dance practice. And when Pat Sr. starts talking about how Pat hanging out with "that Tiffany Maxwell" has ruined the Eagles' chances, Tiffany turns right around and names every single time she and Pat were together as another victory for the Eagles, listing off teams and scores like she has studied ESPN. Pat Sr. quickly changes his mind about Tiffany, which is only a springboard into another ridiculous bet that Pat Sr. agrees to, betting double or nothing on the big game and making it into a parlay by also betting that Pat and Tiffany can get at least a five in their dance contest.
Props to Matthew Quick for creating two characters that need patience and forgiveness, and props to David O. Russell for not losing that on the way to the book adaptation like a lot of other book adaptations seem to do.
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It sounds, at this point, as if the film is about to lapse into formulaic romantic comedy, but thankfully it doesn't become boring or stupid in doing so. Because by this point, you want these characters to win. You love them so much because of how endearingly human they are, how much they have gone through, how much you might identify with them. But of course, it isn't all peaches and gravy. This movie is consistent with its instability, if that makes any sense. Everything that can go wrong does. Nikki shows up. Tiffany freaks out. Ronnie and Veronica try to calm her down by telling her that Pat has said no one should ever throw a marriage down the drain. Tiffany goes and drinks, ready to fall back into the way in which she deals with her pain by hitting on a guy while knocking back two vodkas. She insults Pat to his face. And then they go out onto the floor and dance. And you still don't know how Pat feels about Nikki being there. His facial expression is unreadable. There's a lot riding on this dance, and you feel it. But you also are completely in love with the both of them as they perform their dance, which is far from perfect (it is particularly hilarious to see Bradley Cooper's face in Jennifer Lawrence's crotch as a result of the lift they had been trying to perfect, mostly because of how sexual and non-sexual it is at the same time). The honesty feels so much less condescending to the audience, and you love them even more for that. And when they score an exact 5.0 (okay Hollywood, we know you had some input on that one), it feels completely deserved.
Apparently Bradley Cooper is "a natural" when it comes to dancing, while apparently Jennifer Lawrence "dances like a baby deer." To be fair, it completely worked that neither of them were true experts. It just made you love them more.
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I identified with this movie in a lot of ways; the dysfunctional family, the whole thing about meds, the struggle with trying to be normal when everything in your body and brain chemistry strongly encourages you to be otherwise. It's uncomfortably honest, absolutely it is. But it's also hopeful. The happy ending Pat and Tiffany get feels like they have earned it, and they both love each other so very much and are willing to love each other's flaws too. And the difference between this and standard rom-coms is that their flaws are real and ugly and need to be accepted, by themselves and by each other. When Pat tells Tiffany he loves her, tears roll down her cheeks, and their kiss is intense and passionate and real. A few other people have said that the ending is rounded off a little too neatly, which does have a grain of truth in it, but as someone who battles mental illness herself, I have every reason to believe that Tiffany sitting on Pat's lap as they smile and touch noses and kiss and cuddle would happen in real life. You would be amazed how much mental healing can come from being loved. I have yet to find my Pat, but this movie gave me a lot of hope that I would.
That might sound like a weird statement for me to make. You want to find some guy who's bipolar and delusional? No, that isn't my point. I have learned from my own experience that your illnesses or even just your flaws do not have to define who you are. And sooner or later, you'll find that person who will accept you for better or worse. My hope is that I find a guy one day who knows that I am sweet and smart and funny but also knows that some days I have trouble getting out of bed due to the heaviness that sets into my bones on my bad days. And he will be okay with that because he loves me. I watched that kind of thing happen in this movie, and for the three times I saw it I always felt my spirits lift. I know it's a movie, but darn it if the actors don't make it seem completely real.
This movie is fantastic. Please go see it if you can. It is about forgiveness, love, but ultimately acceptance, and it is one of the best movies I have seen this year, as well as a refreshing entry into the rom-com genre.
RATING: R for language and sexual content/nudity
GRADE: A
Silver Linings Playbook (Trailer)
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