Making fun of someone with a mental illness never seems to fly well with an audience, especially when it comes to the big screen. However, director David O. Russell was not afraid to go against the proverbial grain when doing just that with his movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
In a superb adaptation of the best-selling novel written by Matthew Quick, Silver Linings Playbook portrays the challenges and tribulations of mental illness. Nominated for eight academy awards including best picture and director, the film sets the major-league cast in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pa. (I am somewhat partial to the setting as Cooper’s house in the film is located in my local neighborhood).
Cooper plays Pat, a recently released patient from a local psychiatric hospital after an eight month stay. Pat returns to a dysfunctional home to live with his warm hearted mother, played by Jacki Weaver, and superstitious and short-tempered father, played by the renowned Robert DeNiro. After it was found Pat suffers from bipolar disorder he was hospitalized. His illness was revealed when Pat caught his wife, Nikki, cheating on him and beat up her lover, which resulted in Nikki leaving him.
To show that his stay in the psych ward helped him become a better person, Pat recruits Tiffany, played by Lawrence, who is facing her own set of issues after the death of her husband, by acting out sexually with her colleagues. The two enter a dance competition that Tiffany has been longing to enter even though Pat has never danced in his life. As the competition approaches, an unexpected bond forms between the two, creating an unlikely and odd friendship, demonstrating the “silver linings” in all aspects of both characters’ lives.
During Pat’s tenure in the ward, his father lost his pension and became a bookie. A Philadelphia Eagles fanatic, Pat Sr. is crazy about football in general. While making a living off of others by taking their bets, he is very superstitious and follows a set of rituals. It seems that the father may also be suffering from an obsessive-compulsive personality. The father-and-son duo bump heads throughout the movie, making for an even more enticing story line.
The movie portrays a real life scenario that many of us could relate to, even without a mental illness. The ideas of struggle and overcoming adversity to find those “silver linings” make the flick worth the ticket price.