Wed 9 Jan 2013
Silver Linings Playbook
Posted by autumnrouse under Feelin's and Stuff, Movie Review
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Movies about crazy people always make me feel simultaneously more and less crazy. This one did exceptionally well at the task.
Directed by David O. Russell of The Fighter fame, this film is both about being bipolar and is itself, rather like the illness, prone to dramatic extremes and rapid emotional shifts. But, you know, in a good way.
Our hero(?) is one Pat Solitano, a former teacher in the aftermath of a state mandated hospitalization. Pat comes home one afternoon to find his wife in the shower with another man and nearly beats him to death. Now, arguably, I know plenty of people who aren’t mentally unstable who consider this a perfectly reasonably reaction to said discovery, but in this case, the police take a dim view of the situation and send Pat to the booby hatch.
He is clearly still struggling tremendously when we join him on his last day in the institution before his mother brings him home. He is obsessively focused on improving himself to effect a reconciliation with his estranged wife, despite her restraining order and apparent desire to keep as far away from him as possible.
His parents, played by Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro, want him home and focus their considerable energy into tending their son, all the while hoping to make him well by sheer force of will. In Pat Sr. we see echoes of his sons compulsive behavior, if dim and faint. The dynamic between these characters is utterly familiar and familial; a palpable tension between the needs of the child to be autonomous and the parents to guide and protect their fragile dangerous son.
By having removed Pat from the hospital against doctor’s advice it is clear they have left him vulnerable to the same stresses that triggered his breakdown. More, they have not allowed him to replace his reactionary behaviors with more suitable coping mechanisims. He continues to make constant declarations (which at time border on ravings) about how he will win back the love and affection of his wife at all costs; that marriage requires work and commitment, after all.
To this end his friend Ronnie introduces Pat to Tiffany; the likewise emotionally inconsistent sister of his wife (played by a shockingly puffy-looking Julia Stiles). Tiffany’s abrupt and frequently awkward social tics mimic Pat’s to an uncanny degree. She seems to recognize this instantly and feel a certain oppositional kinship with her prickly counterpart. For his part, Pat chooses to remain willfully blind to their similarities and begins to play an increasingly combative game of “No, YOU’RE more crazy.” Over the dinner table they volley the names of various medications they have tried along with their side effects. It was rather striking to hear Pat reel off a list of three medications, two of which I take myself*.
Tiffany seems determined to be friends with Pat, though at first it seems doomed to fail. Eventually she manages to find a means by which to lure him closer and keep him coming back, though by means that seem obvious, what she decides to do with him once he is there comes as something of a surprise.
The movie is deftly crafted and emotionally effective without being overwrought. It addresses mental illness with a frankness and lack of sentimentality I found deeply refreshing.Â
Recommended
*This was simultaneously amusing and horrifying.