Silver Linings Playbook

2/5

Let’s get a couple things out of the way.

First, I know everyone and their mother has seen this movie.

Second, yes, I have been coping by watching romance movies after a disastrous stint on Hinge.

Third, I’m not really a movie guy, but they don’t require much in terms of time or energy compared to novels. I want to write as much as I can before leaving for school, and providing slipshod, amateurish film reviews seems like a relatively easy and painless way to go about it.

David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook follows the story of Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, who is released to the care of his parents after spending eight months in a mental hospital. Pat is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but he refuses to take his medications and often loses control. The thing Pat wants most is to reconcile with his ex-wife, Nikki, but she has placed a restraining order on him after he almost beats her lover to death. At his best friend Ronnie’s house, Pat meets Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who we soon learn has a mental health diagnosis of her own. Pat spends much of the film attempting to get into contact with Nikki, but he also begins to develop a fraught and unstable relationship with Tiffany, all while reconnecting with his family. Tiffany offers to help Pat send a letter to Nikki in exchange for participating in a dance competition with her.

Of course, a lot of bullshit happens along the way.

I knew before going in that Cooper’s character has bipolar. That’s one of the reasons I decided to watch the film. I’d heard that Lawrence’s character had borderline personality disorder, and although Tiffany exhibits many so-called borderline traits throughout the film, an official diagnosis is never given.

What happens when two people with a mental illness enter into a relationship? This is the film’s motivating question.

I don’t think it succeeded in answering it. Nonetheless, I thought the film was alright.

I won’t belabor this point, but I didn’t think the film’s portrayal of bipolar was very accurate. I took offense to it, in fact. Pat exhibits some delusional thinking near the start of the film, and there are a couple of times that he is high-energy, but I didn’t see the lows of depression, the highs of mania, or the distortions of psychosis reflected in his behavior.

The biggest problem with Pat is that he would occasionally “lose it” — that is, beat up a man his wife is having sex with, or get into a fight at a football game. Other than that, when all is said and done, Pat is just a weird fucking dude. He runs around town wearing a garbage bag, and he has absolutely no sense of social propriety. He says what he wants to say when he wants to say it, even if he isn’t supposed to. But that’s about it.

Having bipolar does not make you a weirdo. It’s not some quirky character trait that makes you act oddly around others. It’s an episodic and debilitating illness.

I, too, spent eight consecutive months in a mental hospital. After I got out, I got so depressed I often couldn’t speak. Pat runs around town with a garbage bag over his hoodie.

But debilitation does not lead to sexy scenes and compelling narratives. I understand that, which is why I forgive Russell’s misrepresentation of bipolar in the film. Google calls the film a rom-com, and if that’s what it is, it can’t consist of a protagonist who is immobilized in his bed.

What do I think the film did well?

First, the pacing was excellent. There is never a lull in the narrative, which keeps chugging along at a rapid but reasonable pace. It’s not breakneck speed, but it throws one thing in your face after another. The film is two hours long, but it didn’t feel like it.

Second, Cooper and Lawrence put on great performances. Cooper nails Pat’s weirdness and intensity, and Lawrence masterfully portrays Tiffany’s emotionality and volatility through her physical movements and facial expressions. The film tries to convince us that Pat and Tiffany are a little cuckoo, and Cooper and Lawrence are, in their own ways, completely up to the task.

Third, for all the film gets wrong about mental illness, I think it does a good job capturing the strains it inevitably places on a family. A big part of the plot involves the relationship between Pat and his father, played by Robert de Niro. de Niro’s character wants nothing more than to connect with his son, but a part of him blames himself for his son’s condition, and another simply wants Pat to get it together and move on with his life. The interactions between Pat and his parents seem very true to life and are arguably the soul of the film.

Weaknesses?

As I said before, I just didn’t think this was a movie about mental illness, and I wish it didn’t pretend to be. I could’ve judged it a lot more impartially had it been sold to me as a film about a developing relationship between two eccentric people whose lives have fallen apart, because as far as I can tell, that’s exactly what it is. No, it wasn’t Pat’s bipolar that made him wear a garbage bag and jog around the neighborhood. He’s just kind of a weirdo. I wish the film had kept it at that.

But more importantly, I didn’t think Pat and Tiffany had very much chemistry together. Apart from their self-described craziness, both characters are somewhat two-dimensional. We learn very little about Tiffany throughout the film; she is, in some ways, all personality and no depth. Pat, too, is basically just a strange guy who is obsessed with his ex-wife. There are few, if any, intimate moments between them, and it’s hard to know what exactly they see in one another. Tiffany falls in love with Pat quickly, perhaps even after their first meeting — but why? Because he says some weird shit and doesn’t blink? Or are we just supposed to chalk up Tiffany’s lightening-quick feelings to her borderline-esque impulsivity and emotionality? In which case, are Tiffany’s feelings really love or just an obsession? The film can’t answer these questions, because it doesn’t really explore them. For the most part, Pat’s and Tiffany’s inner lives remain hidden from us, and in the end, it seems like they fell for each other simply because they were both kinda crazy. Nothing wrong with that, but I wish the film had given us more.

I’ve reviewed three movies thus far on this Substack. My average rating? A 2.8/5.

Maybe I’m a little harsh. Or maybe I’m not watching the best films. In whatever case, I’m pretty sure I only have one or two more romance movies within me.

For some reason, I feel somewhat embarrassed to be watching rom-coms and writing about Hinge. But I guess it shows you where my mind has been at recently.