I just watched Silver Linings Playbook.
I did not like it. Now I will proceed to tell you why I did not like it.
There are spoilers to plot points here, so go watch it on Netflix for yourself before you read on.
The idea that two people who suffer from mental illnesses could have a romance is not novel. A movie I really enjoy is called "It's kind of a funny story" which shows a teen suffering from depression and his story (guess what, a girl is involved) including his depression [I would recommend this movie, although warning, there are a few puking scenes]. SLP declares that the characters have mental illnesses and points them out (remote ordering, luck rituals, freaking out and bashing a man's head in, having a sexual addiction) but this movie isn't about mental illness. Robert de Niro's character (Pat Sr.) apparently suffers from OCD but I don't think it's portrayed in all its seriousness. Of course, some OCD is more mild than other forms an perhaps his is mild.
You don't see a manic phase of Bradley Cooper's character's (Pat) bipolar disorder, although maybe him reading late at night and throwing the book out the window was meant to portray that? It's not a diagnosable manic episode and neither is him beating up his wife's lover. Both are crazy and exaggerations of normal behavior, but not manic. Jennifer Lawrence's character (Tiffany) is certainly 'messed up' (she uses more colorful language) and describes details of her past and how she is recovering. Her awkward social encounters and bluntness seem the most real, like they are behavior traits that would really coincide with her illness. If this was meant to be a love story with a focus on mental illness, I felt it didn't go far enough.
I didn't appreciate that the two main plot points have events occurring on the same day(!) because that is overused. Granted, it's not as though Pat was playing in the football game and competing in the dance competition. The emphasis is on the weight of the outcome of the dance and of the football game which, for the sake of drama, happen one right after the other. I will tell you I rolled my eyes when it was revealed that these two events were on the same night. I thought it was cliché.
I do not like the family talking all at once scenes. Maybe it was done to accurately portray life at a house in Philly, but it felt forced, like the filmmakers thought 'We have to do this so let's try to make it work even though it isn't working.' Also I just think that's stressful and hard to listen to so I don't like it in any movie. I can't watch Cake Boss either- everyone is yelling at each other!
I liked the dinner with Veronica (Julia Stiles- I like her a lot and I'm glad she is still acting) and Ronnie. It was awkward and silent and Pat and Tiffany were able to shine in a weird way. I like how the 'normal' family members get played against the weirdness of other family members.
I did like how the talk with Nikki was not dramatic, not an epic climax, not the thing you thought you were waiting for. I mean, obviously Pat and Tiffany were going to end up together (I have seen a movie before, people) and I liked how we had been hearing about Nikki and waiting to have this moment with her in the present rather than flashbacks but this is all you get- a greeting and a mystery whispered into her ear. It doesn't give you the big moment because it's not about her- it's about Tiffany.
That being said, I didn't like that Pat and Tiffany ended up together. If you look at how different they are, how little time they get to know one another*, and how much stuff both of them still need to work through, their declaration of love seems false.
The bottom line of this post is to say I am getting cynical in my early 20s. I maybe would have enjoyed this movie at a different point in my life, but not today. There was so many things I did not like about it that it outweighed what I did like about it.
*Hey oh, let's talk about the diner scene. First of all, Jennifer Lawrence committed. That woman is amazing and not overrated (I realize that sounds sarcastic after all my ramblings about how I didn't like the movie but I'm totally serious) as you can see in the scene. The tears welling up in her eyes and the tone of her voice and her giant sweeping everything off the table motion. It's what anyone (see: me) might want to do in that situation would want to do but wouldn't because it's inappropriate to cause a scene. I felt like this is true to her character who struggles with societal norms but also kind of shows the advantage of it- she gets to have that victory moment and cause the scene you want to cause because she's not afraid. Of course, it's movie perfect because she is (assumedly) still allowed in the diner, people cheer for her a little, and no one calls the cops. None of that would probably go down that way in real life. Yes. This scene was Great and so was her standing up for Pat not 10 minutes later outside the movie theatre after he royally did her wrong. But those two moments do not an entire movie make up for.
Also, if anyone has a video of what that lift was supposed to look like, I would love to see it.
Overall, I would maybe give it a 3 out of 10. Not my favsies. I recently wrote a thing for class in which my professor commented upon the return of the assignment "My, the cynicism is heavy" which made me laugh and also inspired me to turn my critical eyes on as I watched this movie. I hope I didn't seem cranky.
