Technical assessment: 4
Moral Assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V 14
MTRCB rating: R 13
Pat Solitano (Bradley
Cooper) is released from a Baltimore psychiatric hospital on the insistence of
his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) who does not like him getting used to the
hospital’s routine life. He was
committed by court order to the mental hospital after he beat up a man he had
caught in the shower with his wife Nikki (Brea Bee), a teacher at a local high
school. Pat moves in with his
parents, to the delight of his father Pat Sr. (Robert de Niro) who takes it as
an opportunity to bond with his son. Stubbornly refusing medication, Pat resolves to rebuild
himself by getting in tip top physical shape and enriching his mind by reading
all the books Nikki assigns to her students. He is determined to win her back despite a retraining order
barring him from coming within 500 feet of Nikki. Pat soon meets another psychiatric case, young widow Tiffany
(Jennifer Lawrence), who volunteers to deliver Pat’s letters to Nikki if Pat
would be her partner in a local dance contest.
Two things make a major
push for Silver Linings Playbook:
the story and the actors. All else
are there in support of these two.
The story is part factual, part fantasy, but is told in a way that makes
the film bitingly real. The story needs
no eye candy, no CGI, just the flesh and blood realism of a middleclass
neighborhood in Philadelphia, acted out like the actors were born and raised in
that milieu and were in fact telling their true story. Brad Cooper is a revelation here,
playing a character so remote from his usual roles and giving it incredible
depth. Jennifer Lawrence—well, the
Oscar speaks of the promise the 22-year old holds as a major talent. (Somehow her face is perfect for the
intense characters she’s given, remember
Hunger Games). Here her
character is so fierce she can steal the thunder from de Niro, who, by the way,
delivers classic de Niro as Pat Sr.
Silver Linings Playbook gives hope, as the proverbial silver lining
behind the dark clouds. It’s an
optimistic movie that treats mental illness with respect, and demonstrates how persons with neuroses may rise
above their situation. The keyword
is “Excelsior” (Latin for “ever upward”) which subtly permeates the day to day
life of ordinary people in an ordinary neighborhood. Not overtly religious, the characters nonetheless hope and
believe—Pat himself, a bi-polar patient, says “There is a reason for everything
that happens.” The Solitano home offers clues to
the inhabitants’ Christian faith but the father engages in rituals—something
like a home-brewed feng shui—that’s supposed to bring him luck at betting on
the Philadelphia Eagles. In the
end, one may indeed wonder how relevant medicine is when people who sincerely
work for what they want, do not get what they want, but get something better
instead. Then you realize, the
silver lining is but a proof of the presence behind the clouds of a
light-giving, life-giving Sun.
