Silver Linings Playbook Movie Review
The movie I have decided to Review was the Silver Lining Playbook. This movie is about a man (Pat Solitano) who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was emitted into a psychiatric hospital after finding out his wife has cheated on him, and severely beating up his wife lover. After 8 months of being in the psychiatric hospital he was let out and returned to living with his parents trying to figure and rebuild his life, he must keep up with therapy, and as Pat has been released throughout the movie he is in search of reconnecting with his wife. Pat's dad has OCD and tries to connect with his son by watching football thinking that pat is the charm for his favourite team always winning. Along the way he meets a young lady (Tiffany) who is also dealing with her own mental illness due to the death of her husband, she helps pat trying to converse with his wife if he helps her compete in a dancing competition.
Throughout training they end up finding out that they match well with together and a silver lining appears in both of their lives. When figured out that they had won a bet that was placed by Pats dad towards a football game and the score of their dance routine, Pat quickly goes to converse and share the excitement with his wife, leaving Tiffany heartbroken thinking they had a connection. Realizing that she had left Pat chases after her and they both had realized they had become reliant on each other when coping with their illnesses and figure out that they were meant to be and ended up loving each other. In the movie Pat would act out irrationally and sometimes do out of the ordinary things. In one of the scenes his therapist put on a song and triggers Pat as it was his wedding song, destroying the office by throwing stuff all over the place and ruining everything, when talking to his therapist it was to see if he could get a reaction out of pat which it was evident that he was still drawn to his wife.
Another moment in the movie was when pat went crazy during the night trying to find his old wedding video and woke up the whole neighborhood that the cops had to come, and his parents had to calm him down. I have noticed that in the movie Pats behaviour portrays to be acting younger than he is by being uncomfortable to talking about sex, and constantly whining and nagging when it comes to his parents. Errors I have picked up on in the movie line is that not all problems and situations can be fixed with love, it can help, and it can be used as a way to cope but love doesn’t make a mental illness disappear which I felt happened at the end of the movie had happened. In the scene where Pat talks to his therapist, his therapist would give him false hope by saying that there was still faith in Pats marriage although she put a restraining order against him and would refuse to talk to him. I felt that yes, doctors are supposed to sympathize and advice their patients but by the therapist telling him that it encouraged him to keep on this ongoing obsession of his wife instead of helping him move on from the bad memories of his wife. David O. Russell (director of Silver Linings playbook) did portray a strong message about mental illness, he made the message clear about the movie that although the you may run into difficult and hard to overcome events there will always be a positive aspects to things, which in the movies case was Pat to Tiffany and Tiffany to Pat as they both turned to each other to help one another out.
Although the movie is a romantic comedy it tends to lack the seriousness of mental illnesses that associated with, having the characters using running and dancing as a treatment to coping with their mental illness is an accurate representation of what people use to help distract their struggles especially in Pats case where he couldn’t stop excessively reacting about moments of him and his wife.
Overall this movie portrays that having a mental illness such as a bipolar disorder can impact an individual as well as the loved ones around them. Watching the Silver Linings playbook, I could really feel the intensity and the emotions the characters illustrated. I felt that it almost portrays the human struggles that goes on through normal human experiences in different aspects of mental issues. It is so common that it is important for us to be aware of psychological disorders that surrounds us. The cast did a great job playing their roles, by engaging the audience with real life situations. For example, when Pat was pretending to take his medications because they made him feel not himself, is relatable for those who are on medication that refuse to take it either because they think it is unnecessary or because of its side-effects. All in all, the Silver Linings Playbook is an outstanding film that reminds society of the mental illness that’s out in the world that we blatantly disregard which helps us to better our understanding when going further in coming to contact with people.
