Silver Linings playbook

I am late on this. The movie came and bagged one Oscar and disappeared into the annals of history. I didn’t get a lot of good vibes about the movie when it released. The regular movie goers weren’t thrilled about watching the movie. Those who watched it weren’t impressed. I have often viewed this attitude with skepticism. All movies don’t appeal to all. Yet, I yielded to popular opinion. I was wrong. Silver Linings playbook appealed to me.

The beauty of the movie is how characters get portrayed. It is very difficult to display so many complex characters at the same time. We would have come across a movie that centers on a mentally challenged or physically challenged character. It is often just one or two and the movie centers on them. In this movie we have each character coming out and shining bright. Bradley Cooper is bipolar. So is the excellent Jennifer Lawrence. Robert Deniro is his vintage best and has his own set of OCDs. The mother of the family who is stuck with an OCD stuck husband and a bipolar son is not shown as a woman brooding. She instead comes out and displays a rare brand of understanding, strength and calmness. It was just a treat to watch these characters meander.

In one scene the over achiever son comes and brags about himself to his bipolar brother. A tension builds at that point. Everybody is expecting a couple of blows to come up. The answer that Bradley Cooper gives is both endearing and captures the soul of the movie. In one scene Cooper senses a certain fondness he is probably developing for Lawrence and he runs home and frantically looks for his wedding video. All this is out of sheer guilt and the portrayal is fantastic.

A movie is like a timeline. Here a character A transforms into an A+ or D. The biggest failure of any movie would be to make this transformation abrupt. But Silver Linings Playbook makes the transformation smooth and lovely. What the movie suffers greatly from is a lack of surprise. There is no red herring. It is almost a children’s movie that way. It just doesn’t want to disappoint you at any point. There is a lot of grief in the movie but no disappointment. Hence the movie might come off as a monotone despite many many scenes of vociferous outbursts.

The question is, did you enjoy it? I sure as hell did. And that Oscar was a thoroughly deserved one.