FILM REVIEW | Silver Linings Playbook (a love story for the broken ones)

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Directed By: David O. Russell

Written By: David O. Russell and Matthew Quick (who wrote the original novel) 

"Why are they so excited about a 5?"

There was a small but intense backlash to Silver Linings Playbook upon its release in 2012. Scrolling through reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and various film critic outlets, I discovered that a contingent of the film's critics cried out "this movie tells us love cures all! Mentally ill people can’t magically be happy! It’s unrealistic!". It always struck me as a peculiar complaint, least of all because the burden of realism only ever seemed reserved for movies featuring a main character with mental illness. I thought back to all the times I had been in love, the inspiration I felt when it had been reciprocated and true. Looking back, the only unrealistic notion in all this is the idea that love doesn’t play an imperative role in our healing and happiness.

In Silver Linings Playbook, Pat is a manic-depressive played by a Bradley Cooper at his best. We see his productive stay in a rehabilitation centre interrupted by his mother, who decided that 8 months was long enough and it is time for him to come home. We learn, through flashes of memory and sessions with his court-mandated therapist Dr Patel, that he had a psychotic episode upon discovering his wife Nikki with another man... and nearly beat him to death. Meanwhile in Pat's life, his father (in a beautiful performance by Robert DeNiro) runs what is by all accounts an illegal bookie business out of his home. He is often at odds with his son's struggles, refusing to see how his own gambling, OCD and superstitions are their own toxic prison. Pat also has a smug brother, plus two exceptionally supportive but equally damaged (and hilarious) friends. One of whom is Danny (played by the enigmatic Chris Tucker), who keeps coming up with creative legal precedent for early release from the facility in which he met Pat, only to be cheerfully hauled back again by exasperated authorities. By highlighting the idiosyncrasies of all the surrounding characters with brilliant subtlety, the film whispers to its audience and says with a smile "See? We're all a little bit crazy." And for the next two hours, the stigma melts away.

As Pat tries to cultivate a stable life in the chaos rallying a positive "silver lining" outlook (that borders on denial), he tries to find ways to reach Nikki in spite of the restraining order against him. We never directly meet her as an audience, which only strengthens the narrative as we are left to sit with Pat's desperate attempts to convince himself that Nikki is the one, that he is still in love with her, that he is better now, that he can come back from what he did. This thinking is challenged by the imperfect Tiffany, played to perfection by Jennifer Lawrence (who can keep up with the extremes of her character effortlessly). Tiffany meets Pat at a dinner hosted by her neurotic sister Veronica, the wife of Pat's best friend Ronnie. We discover Tiffany has a reputation as a nymphomaniac (over which she lost her job), but as her journey unfolds we begin to understand how everything she does is in the wake of the trauma and guilt left behind by her husbands death. She promises that in exchange for sneaking a letter to Nikki, Pat must be her partner in a local dance competition. For her, dancing is both a passion project and form of therapy, and we see it become those things for Pat too as they both heal and find life in it together. Unlike other movies about broken men recovering from their lowest point (in which the female lead only exists in service to the male), here both characters are equal partners, driving forward the narrative in equal measure. She finds ways to reconnect with him, pushing through his bluntness and defences one by one. Watching these two dysfunctional people trying to form a connection provides us with scenes that are as gut-wrenching as they are funny.

If the title wasn't enough, the film states its thesis in one of its earliest scenes, when Pat is reading A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway and reaches its ending, one full of pain and regret. To which he has this spectacular reaction:

We understand then how this film feels about unnecessarily sad endings. Life is fucking hard enough, our most beloved stories shouldn't be without hope too. This leads me to address the most repeated criticism surrounding the movie - especially in the critical community. When they insist that two mentally ill characters finding true love and joy in one another is unrealistic, what they actually mean is "you can't possibly experience happiness the way we do". If you visit the reviews of many other romantic comedies in which quirky yet healthy characters find their happiness in true love, there is no outcry – the ending is accepted as standard practice. It speaks to this underlying idea that we aren’t considered worthy or capable of true happiness. For those of us with mental health struggles however, these toxic views consistently hold us back as we internalise all they imply. If they were paying attention, they would understand Silver Linings Playbook is not actually a message about "love conquers all". Pat and Tiffany are loved by their families and friends, yet we still see them struggle with their medication, therapy, darker impulses, anger, manic episodes and bad days. 

No, what the film is saying, is that acceptance helps conquer all. There is a cost to keeping your dark and broken pieces caged away from everything else, which is what is expected of us every damn day. But when we are allowed space to bare everything we are, and it is met with the kind of encouragement Pat and Tiffany find in one another... it heals the soul. 

None of this is to suggest we will ever be completely free from the shadow of mental illness, and the film doesn't gloss over Pat and Tiffany's struggles either. We see the cost of his illness left unchecked and unmanaged, how quickly his mania can descend into delusion. The "wedding video" incident captures how suddenly a psychotic episode can descend for someone unwell in that way, over a seemingly minor thing (I have had to help a number of friends step down off that ledge over the years). We see Pat's family walk on eggshells, afraid the wrong words could undo his hard work in a heartbeat. That apprehension is something those with extreme mental health issues face from their loved ones everyday. No-one could ever understand how exhausting it is, to be constantly measured against your darkest moments rather than defined by your most profound breakthroughs. 

“PAT: It’s not at all like me and Nikki. What are you talking about? We’re in love and we’re married. It’s completely different. We have a very unconventional chemistry… Yeah, we wanna change each other, but that’s normal, couples wanna do that, I want her to stop dressing like she dresses, I want her to stop acting so superior to me, okay? And she wanted me to lose weight and stop my mood swings, both of which I’ve done. I mean, people fight. Couples fight. We would fight, we wouldn’t talk…. That’s normal.”

I realised as the film progressed how much I had in common with Tiffany, a woman constantly trying to outrun her trauma and feelings of failure, clinging to whatever she could to feel something else awhile. I loved her easy forgiving nature and desire to help Pat feel alive instead of living in fear, two things that resonate with me. I also relayed to her ability to become an expert on subjects very quickly, girls a quick study like I am.

One scene that truly hit home however was a moment she pulls away from Pat after offering to help him, noting that for once, she wanted something in return. In my friendships and small handful of relationships, with everyone in my life from age 13 to 33, I’ve always been that woman who gives everything and asks nothing in return - it’s just her nature. Her reasoning struck a chord… 

I am also a woman who is comfortable with her messy pieces - I too organically seek the silver lining in life, enjoying the small joys life has to offer. I will never scream or yell or storm off, but I am likely to meet your crazy with something else crazy too. I am also attuned to my sexuality in ways that don't always serve me well. Like her, I don’t let people slide by on their bullshit, especially when I care about them. I know what people are really saying when they filter their judgement of me through their own self-loathing. As I outlined above, I understand how it feels to be a giving and thoughtful person yet have people take advantage of that, to still feel empty. But most of all... I knew what it is like to meet someone that understands what no-one else seems to. There are a few fleeting scenes, where Tiffany sees Pat and his ex, and it's almost like I could feel her thundering heart through the screen as she directed her perceptiveness to Pat and fought to keep the pain from shattering her resolve completely. She is willing to let him be happy even as it crushes something fundamental in her. I have had to find that same strength more times than I care to remember. 

To further distil my affection for this movie is to go back to 2015. I had just emerged out of a six year relationship, the last two years of which my partner and I had slowly fallen out of love with one another. I had been on Seroquel for a year for my own trauma and anxiety and as I watched the film, it brought a genuine smile to my face. There is particular scene where Pat and Tiffany have an open exchange about the brutal side effects of their prescribed medications, it is amusing and heartfelt and real. Watching it made me feel so... normal. For the first time in a long while. 

Over the years, whenever I put this film on I thought about my own Pat, and I wondered how he was doing. We knew what we were to each other the moment we met, and it wasn't dance lessons but conversation, music and movies that drew out our passion and excitement. Like Pat and Tiffany, we would have honest and ugly moments only to recover from them quickly. I also truly think you have to survive the depths of your darkness to love film in the way he and I do. Because when you are bipolar like he was, or a sufferer of PTSD, ADD like me, you then yearn to escape into another world as often as you can. I see our story and pieces of us so strongly echoed in Pat and Tiffany's connection.

 

It's a thought that used to make me sad, but on the most recent viewing my heart was filled with a warmth and bittersweet gratitude to this person, and our history. The pain of these characters all culminates in that euphoric scene, as the dance lessons come together and Pat and Tiffany get to save the day in the smallest way. It always makes me laugh from a genuinely joyful place. Yet it’s the quiet joy in the closing scenes, where Pat describes Sunday as being his favourite day again (no longer associated with pain alone), and we aspiringly get to see what true acceptance looks like. It contained everything he and I could have offered one another if the world had taught us that happiness was possible for people like us. 

We never had those tools, or a narrative that demonstrated being ourselves in love was a possibility. Instead it was constantly reinforced for us how our broken pieces were something we had to “protect” others from. I am starting to realise we deserve better than to walk through this world cut-off from everything that gives us life. We should have our own love stories too. Ultimately, Silver Linings Playbook a beautiful and pertinent portrayal of life with mental illness. We deserve to see more films tell our stories in the same way - with hope instead of fear.

💜