Michael Ledo The film centers around Patrick (Bradley Cooper), a bipolar person, who has issues. He goes into a berserk mode whenever he hears "My Cherie Amour" like Curly used to do when they played "Pop Goes the Weasel." Of course bipolar people should be introduced to other bipolar people, because you never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.Patrick is introduced to Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who steals every scene with an Oscar worthy performance. Robert De Niro plays Patrick's father, a superstitious Eagles fan, who appears to be slightly bipolar himself. While institutionalized, Patrick learned to look for "the silver lining" in everything in order to cope with life, something he doesn't always do too well. Tiffany has her own issues and together they haphazardly work their way into a relationship.They should film more movies in Philadelphia as I have never seen the streets so clean. It is a heart warming, fun drama/romance with an indie flavor. Worth a view, but not necessarily on the big screen.Parental Guidance: F-bombs, no sex, brief nudity.

allykooz Silver(Gold) Linings Playbook Silver Lining Playbook should be called Gold Linings Playbook with the performance that David O. Russell puts up in this movie. Silver Lining Playbook opens up with Pat Solitano(Bradley Cooper) after 8 months in a mental hospital, realizing he's been separated from his wife after finding out he's an undiagnosed bipolar and realizes he needs to get his wife back, always keeping with him the idea that if you stay positive and work hard then a silver lining will happen; it just takes him the whole movie to figure out what that silver lining will be. Pat meets Tiffany(Jennifer Lawrence) who has just lost her husband and in her mourning also develops a mental illness, which creates a friendship that turns out to help both of them a lot more and in a way they never would've thought before. David O. Russell takes the problem of mental health/illness and shows what it's like to be in their heads, for the people around them, and put into this real issue into a romantic comedy; putting mental health into a movie like a romantic comedy is genius because it shows how normal or regular it is for people to have them. Silver Linings Playbook opens in the mental hospital where Pat is staying and his moms strong drive to take him out which builds a strong sense of pathos between the audience and Pat, and makes them feel sadness and pity for him. In building this Pathos it allows the audience to feel what he's feeling and relate to him more, and always hope for the best for him. Russell chooses 2 incredible actors, Cooper and Lawrence, who are able to take the complexity of these characters to the next level and let us really see what is going on in the heads of these two characters, not just portraying them as crazy and through the eyes of just the surrounding people, but what mental processing is going through their heads when it's happening and what drives them to get there. A big trigger for Pat is hearing his wedding song, because that's the song that he was hearing when he walked in on his wife cheating on him with another worker at the school they worked at. Everytime Pat hears this song it triggers him to go back to that place he was in when he caught his wife with that man, and allows us to see how just one song can affect someone in this state of mind. Though there aren't a ton of movies that put an emphasis on mental health, Silver Linings Playbook does fail to show how people who haven't suffered traumatic events like getting cheated on by your wife, or losing your husband can also suffer from mental health issues like depression, and anxiety. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower includes the aspect that anyone can suffer from mental illness and it doesn't make it any less important that they didn't go through anything traumatic and still happens just as much if not more. This is what Silver Linings Playbook lacks because although it puts a very big importance on this issue and in a realistic approach it lacks to show how common it is like The Perks Of Being A Wallflower does. There has been so many movies done in the last couple of decades that Silver Lining Playbook gives us a breath of fresh air giving us a movie like nothing else made. Russell let's the audience draw their own conclusions about what they think of each character and whether or not Pat and Tiffany are actually crazy or it's actually that other people got them to that place. This movie makes the audience question society and how we treat people and to look at ourselves in the mirror and see the impact we have on one another, rather then bringing people down we need to focus on lifting them up . Silver Lining Playbook is a must see and you will not be disappointed in the performance by these two brilliant actors that make you fall in love and acquire more empathy and understanding for those who deal with mental illness everyday

scottgrote My first glance at The Silver Linings Playbook was during the 2013 Oscars when Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for best actress. The ceremony presented one of the most popular scenes from it, the scene that would compel me to watch it. She asks why Bradley Cooper ordered Raisin Brain, he says because he didn't want it to seem like a date. He says he hopes people don't associate his mental issues with her "crazy." She shows him crazy. Part of me can't help but love this scene. This moment is so raw. Or Real? Perhaps neither. But it is so exhilarating. And many years after having first watched it, I think I may, now, know why. It must her manic-pixie-dream-girl attitude. The politics of this movie already verge on the conservative but the introduction of a manic-pixie girl would perhaps seal the deal. Does she meet on the requirements of one? Perhaps not, but what are these requirements. I mean she seems manic, having sudden bursts of energy. And she does seems to share the spontaneous attitude Zooey Deschanel sports in 500 Days of Summer (an icon for the manic pixie dream girl trope). She also seems to enliven her lover the way one does. Her dancing seems to bring out new life in Bradley Cooper. It's no wonder my teenage self loved her. She brought out in Bradley Cooper that which a women would someday bring out in angsty-teen me. My second glance into this movie was when my dad was watching it. After he finished up I asked how it was and he said "Good." Isn't it about someone who's crazy or something?" and he said "Everyone is a little crazy in this." I liked that description. It was as if everyone was a little crazy in their own way. Does this movie romanticize mental disorders? Perhaps. Is that wrong? Probably. But as a person with a mental disorder I liked it. It made me feel like someday I would find someone cute and "crazy," and we could be "crazy" together. But my experience is a poor representation for all and I think it's a really a tricky sub genre to enter into, the romance between people with mental disorders. You will doubtless have to walk on thin ice to create a film that people won't find an issue. For how can one make a rom-com in this sub-genre without romanticizing the mental disorder. Isn't that what Romance does?In any case, whether I like the politics or not, a part of me will always hold part of this film close to me. The acting is good, the script funny, the romance dysfunctioning(until the last few moments of film where Bradley Cooper takes her in his lap and steals a kiss, I'll ignore those moments) and cute. Lovely film.

kateevans-31553 Let me begin by saying that I absolutely adore Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. I really do believe that everyone involved in the making of this film portrayed the characters of this story as likable, captivating, and clearly unique from the typical romantic comedy characters. However, as you are hopefully beginning to realize, this does not mean that Silver Linings Playbook is a flawless depiction of individuals with mental illness. It's got a lot of issues, some more problematic than others. The film begins when Bradley Cooper's character, Pat, is released from a mental health facility and brought to live in his childhood home with his parents. Soon after his return, he meets Tiffany, a young woman struggling with an unnamed mental illness of her own, exacerbated by the tragic death of her husband. After a few comedic encounters, Tiffany convinces Pat to compete with her in a couples dance competition in exchange for her delivering a letter to Pat's estranged wife, Nikki. (The whole reason Pat ended up in the mental health facility is because he nearly beat a man to death after coming home to find him in the shower with Nikki. Following this episode, Pat is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.)I want to like the idea of these heavy subjects being dealt with in the context of a romantic comedy. However, the scenes in which Pat experiences manic episodes are disrespectfully comedic. The audience shouldn't feel the urge to laugh at a character's bipolar episode. So, there's problem number one. Then, there's the small fact that one of Pat's episodes is purposely caused by his own therapist! I was really rooting for Dr. Patel. He's a funny, Philadelphia Eagles-loving guy, but what kind of therapist purposely plays a song in the waiting room that is a trigger for his new patient?! While this leads to a breakdown that is very familiar to individuals who struggle with similar illnesses, it is a seriously concerning depiction of a mental health professional. (Later, he throws away any hope of regaining professionalism and gets drunk with Pat at a Philadelphia Eagles game...come on, Dr. Patel. Enough.)Some critics have complained that Pat's bipolar disorder is only represented in the form of manic episodes, while depressive episodes are noticeably absent from the story. Considering that some individuals with bipolar disorder experience very few depressive episodes throughout their lifetime, I find no issue with this. The movie takes place over the span of only a few months; it is perfectly reasonable that Pat does not experience a depressive episode during this time. It would be unfair to expect a single film to portray every aspect of a complicated illness that manifests itself differently in every individual.That said, this film sends a clear message that I find decidedly troubling. As Pat falls in love with Tiffany, many of the symptoms of his bipolar disorder magically disappear. She is able to remove the triggering effects of his wedding song by just whispering a few words of comfort. She somehow counteracts his obsession with Nikki to the extent that he doesn't even care that she lied about the whole letter-writing charade. The audience has no reason to believe that he suddenly started taking his medications, considering he even avoided taking them at the mental health facility. Yet somehow, his symptoms seem to disappear. While there is certainly research to support the idea that being in love improves symptoms of some mental illnesses, this film takes it a bit too far. Love can not cure Pat's bipolar disorder or Tiffany's depression. In order to fit the typical mold of the romantic comedy, Pat's very serious mental illness is trivialized. The end of the film suggests that his struggles have magically disappeared purely because Tiffany loves him. It sounds too good to be true, and it is.Perhaps unintentionally, this film supports the narrative that mental illness can be fixed by an improvement of external circumstances. While external factors absolutely play a role in the manifestation of mental illness, a single change in relationship status is not a mystical cure-all. We can celebrate all of the things that Silver Linings Playbook does well, but it's still far from ideal.