Silver Linings Playbook Review

                In this film I was expecting a love story kind of based on: you’re crazy, I’m crazy, and so we can be crazy together.  Although at the end I realized it did have some of the characteristics but that was not the overall meaning of the film.  It was about two people whose families were still heavily supporting them because of past actions and their trials of discovering who they really have become.  Pat (Bradley Cooper) was sent to a mental hospital for almost killing the man who was sleeping with his wife.  During the scene that shows Pat coming home to this devastating event you can see he shows very little hesitance in beating this man senseless.  This I believe is the reason why he was sent to the hospital because he could not look past his anger at the moment to see how this could affect his life later on.

                Tiffany on the other hand whom we do not meet until after Pat has been released also suffers from some kind of mental illness.  When we are introduced to Tiffany at a dinner party thrown by her sister, we find out shortly after that she is a widow.  Her husband’s death caused her to feel emptiness which leads her to sleeping with dozens of people.   There is one scene when I could truly see the beginning of relationship between Tiffany and Pat, it when is they are talking about the type of medicine each of them take.  It was the first real thing that both of them wanted to talk about.  Before that Pat was kind of avoiding her because all night he wanted to talk about was his wife that he was trying to win back.  This was another ongoing point, his attempts to bring back the feeling of love that his wife used to have for him that she lost the day he came home to her cheating.

                Pat’s violent outburst is not a surprise once we learn that his father, Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro) too has been known to get in fights at Philadelphia Eagles games.  His father is actually banned from Lincoln Financial Field (Eagles stadium) because he fought too much.  Pat Sr. develops obsessive compulsive disorder anytime time the Eagles game is on TV. He has Pat Jr. hold the remotes a certain way, his wife Dolores (Jacki Weaver) cook the same meal every Sunday, and he records every single game. 

My favorite scene in the whole film was when one morning Pat Jr. was sleeping and Pat Sr. comes walking up the stairs and enters his son’s room.  Pat Sr. begins to rub Pat Jr. awake and then whispers “son, this is very important, I need to talk to you” and Pat Jr. begins come to and asks “what’s going on?”  Then Pat Sr. says “The Eagles game is about to start and I need you downstairs to hold each of the remotes.” This was my favorite scene because it shows how much the Philadelphia Eagles truly mean to Pat Sr. and it makes his son feel as if nothing is wrong and everything is just going on as usual.  It helps Pat Jr. take his mind of his wife and Tiffany for a brief period of time.

As the film progresses Pat Jr. and Tiffany start spending more time together and the relationship develops steadily.  Pat Jr. does not realize how much he likes Tiffany because he is still madly in love with his wife.  He cannot see that Tiffany actually cares deeply for him.  Towards the conclusion of the film Pat is realizing how much he actually loves Tiffany until he sees his wife again and he must choose between the two women. To him, being with Tiffany represents accepting who he has become and being with his wife represents the person he used to be.  Overall I would say this movie is a must see and would give it a 9.5/10. Thank you for reading.

-Harry McPhaul

Silver Linings Playbook

by Tyler Darke

       After watching Silver Linings Playbook I can completely understand why it earned eight Academy Award nominations. The cohesiveness of the cast made me feel like I was living every scene; like I was part of the Solitano family.

      I was quite apprehensive of Bradley Cooper's performance as the lead among such great acting talent. I had yet to see him in a role that I was overly impressed with, so I was not sure what to expect in Silver Linings Playbook. I am happy to say that he turned me into a fan with this movie. His performance was nothing short of amazing. Particularly, the scenes between him and Robert De Niro...acting genius. There was an intense love between two characters that was palpable even amongst the fighting and frustration. Similarly, the love between Cooper and Jacki Weaver was equally palpable. Weaver didn't even need her lines to convey her intense emotions. Her tears and nonverbal communication spoke volumes.

      Jennifer Lawrence was the perfect choice as Cooper's new-found love interest. The chemistry between the two was electric during both the passionate dancing and arguing scenes, and the painfully awkward encounters at dinner and while jogging. I don't know if I will ever be able to think about Rasin Bran again without laughing. The love story was brilliantly balanced to not come off as "cheesy" but rather, romantic and relatable.

      Overall, Silver Linings Playbook is a beautifully made film that deserves every bit of attention and success it has garnered. In my book, it's a must-see. 9/10

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook

by Hunter Isham


Life can take many crazy twists and turns as it unfolds. Take this review blog for example. A few weeks ago I would never have seen myself sitting down to review films on a regular basis, but I’m hoping that it becomes something that makes my life a richer experience. And so we find Pat Solitano, a newly diagnosed bipolar man who, following a painful separation from his wife, is just released from a mental health facility and into the custody of his parents. Silver Linings Playbook gives us this man and so many other characters whose lives face drastic changes, yet they somehow manage to make something better in the end.
Bradley Cooper, finally given a role with a bit more thematic legroom, plays Pat as an angrily optimistic man who just wants the life he once had, only to be reminded by his loving yet concerned parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro) that his wife has moved away, not to mention that pesky restraining order she has against him. Weaver and De Niro are wonderful as the family that simply wishes for their son to move on and be happy again, even if he wakes them up in the early morning complaining that Hemingway should have given his characters a happier ending. As Pat Sr., De Niro finds a nice middle ground on which he can be both likable and a bit pathetic. As an obsessive compulsive bookmaker who truly cares for his son, he also loves the Philadelphia Eagles, and continually bets his fate on their own.
The Solitano family thinks it’s regularly on the verge of moving forward with their lives, but it’s only with the introduction of the young widow Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) that anyone begins to make progress. Meeting at a dinner put on by relatives and friends, the honest and unfiltered Tiffany strikes up a friendship with the determined yet delusional Pat. They jog together, and after some arm-twisting, he agrees to be her partner in a dance competition. Lawrence gives Tiffany a strength and sense of perseverance and accomplishment, perhaps being the only principal character in the film who, though in stasis following her husband’s death, decides to do something new with her life. She also exemplifies tremendous vulnerability as the film progresses, revealing Tiffany’s true tenderness underneath the grit she displays earlier.
A great talent is needed to bring such humor and heart to a story of gambling, death, and troubled mental health, and writer/director David O. Russell was certainly up to the task. I have not seen his other films, but I am familiar with his reputation for making somewhat crazy material into something compelling. That’s essentially what he does with Silver Linings Playbook, a film that sounds so depressing when put into words yet so charming once viewed from start to finish. Even as the film builds toward the big dance competition, and the audience thinks everyone will have a happily ever after ending, the story bucks the expected trend of a dazzling victory at the competition, instead offering something wholly more satisfying and inline with the film’s tone.
As its title suggests, Silver Linings Playbook is all about people taking what they have, good or bad, and trying to make their lives better for it. The film may give us the ending we want, but it most certainly earns its happiness, never for one second letting us forget the many unhappy endings these characters have endured before the first reel even hits the screen. To look for silver linings in life may be condemned as blind optimism, but with a trend of dark (if still great) films dominating a good deal of cinema right now, it’s great to see something so charming and warm on the silver screen once more. 9/10