Spoiler alert, don’t read this first paragraph if you’re gonna watch the movie. Okay, lemme give you a semi-comprehensive summary of Silver Linings Playbook. Mind you, some of the themes are mature, so if you’re not tall enough to ride the bumper cars, chances are this isn’t the right blog post for you.
Okay, so Pat (Bradley Cooper) was a teacher at this school and he was newly married to Nicky. She’s a total pooface seeing as she cheats on him with one of the old wrinkly history teachers from the school. Pat has amazing timing and walks in on this terrible scene. Being a devoted lover, he beats the old guy up so badly that it lands him 8 months in a state mental facility. He gets out on a plea bargain and also because his mother just really loves him and fought for him to get out. Then he goes back to living with his parents as a grown man. He tries to get back into shape and smarten up, all of which is to win back Nicky. To most people, it’d be common knowledge that she moved on…but nope, not to Pat. Okay, so skipping to the important bits. Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) and they hit it off right away. Why? Well because Tiffany is insecurely depressed because her husband just died and she’s just not dealing well with it, so what she really needs is a good cry and a good friend. So the pair of “crazies” become good buddies…but it’s a chick flick, nothing ever just stays in the friendzone. Pat wants to get back with his cheater-face of a wife, and Tiff says she can help him only if he does this dance gig with her. Pat drops his masculinity (this would only ever happen in a movie unfortunately) and agrees to this dance thing that’s important to Tiff. All this spending time together culminates into something. Not gonna say what, but if you haven’t been able to guess by now, you seriously have never seen a chick-flick. In that case, go watch the Notebook, your girl friend will appreciate it.
Enjoy the nice trailer. Also, Excelsior — Look it up. My wise word of the day.
This was definitely one of the better thought out chick flicks I’ve seen. The acting was real and I invested some emotion into the characters because they dealt with some tough obstacles such as overcoming mental illness and not-so-fun past experiences. I wouldn’t say that the movie was deserving of all the Oscars it was nominated for just because near the end, the storyline sort of diverged from the charm of Tiff and Pat’s interaction and went off into this football bet. I’m also a girl and I don’t like football, so it was big turnoff for me. However, the ending was so satisfying and gosh, there are some unpredictable quirky moments that you just want to savor.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it 92% in terms of fresh tomatoes, and IMDB gave it 8/10. These numbers are convincing, therefore you should go watch this movie. Also, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes provide vague enough summaries that you can still go an enjoy the movie. So yeee, it’s safe to click on those links for a quick low-down on the movie. If you enjoy this movie, I’m positive you’ll also love The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
BUT if a couple of fractions and percentages aren’t enough to convince you, the characters were a pleasure to watch. An all-star cast with Robert de Niro, Chris Tucker, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence (whom I have the biggest girl crush on now). I’m honestly not sure why Chris Tucker was in the movie, but I’m always intrigued by his voice and bulging eyes, so I wasn’t complaining. Bradley Cooper plays an attractive determined angry lover, and Jennifer Lawrence plays an attractive passionate depressed lover. They couldn’t have done a better job, which is why Jen’s Oscar for Best Actress is completely deserved. Also, like she said, Meryl Streep wasn’t in the category this year, so everyone else had a chance at winning haha.
The big thing about this movie is the way it targets mental illness. It promotes an awareness about the normality of the condition and how people often treat it as some frightening foreign disease. Like Jen Lawrence said, “people take medicine for diabetes, and people take medicine for asthma, but as soon as you take medicine for the mind, there’s such a stigma to it”. This blog post is turning into a Jennifer Lawrence worship session more than a movie review. DOESN’T BOTHER ME.
SO HERE’S MORE ABOUT HOW WONDERFUL SHE IS. There needs to be a Jennifer Lawrence appreciation moment because she handled everything at the Oscars with such grace or with enough humor that everything else just didn’t matter. She fell going up the stairs for her award, but no big deal, she’s so awesome that she got a standing ovation for just that. There’s some iffy language in this video, so just be warned.