Precious like prayers

Film review: The Silver Linings Playbook

MANILA, Philippines - Watching The Silver Linings Playbook on the day one turned 55 is precious like the prayers sent through text and Facebook by well-meaning friends. It is a film with a message as old as humanity: Redemption through love, which one would like to remember in this milestone birthday.

The movie was adapted from a novel written by a literature teacher (Matthew Quick or Q), known for borrowing from the 19th-century transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau’s exhortation to “live life deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,” as he himself did, abandoning his tenure and backpacking though exotic places before finally writing full time in his in-laws’ basement.

Among the transcendentalists’ core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature, with society and its institutions — particularly organized religion and political parties — ultimately corrupting the purity of the individual.  They were strong believers in the power of the individual and divine messages, tenets that are closely linked with those of the Romantics. This is what Pat Peoples (in the book) or Pat Solitano Jr. (in the movie with screenplay and direction by David O. Russell) had for a mantra as he struggled to put his life back in order.

As the blurbs for the movie bannered: Pat has a theory: His life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure him a happy ending — the return of his estranged wife, Nikki.

The story line seems maudlin: Pat (Bradley Cooper), who has bipolar disorder, is taken home by his mother, Dolores (Jacki Weaver), from a mental health facility into their old home after eight months of treatment following his almost fatal attack of his wife’s paramour. During his time there, he forms a close friendship with a fellow patient, Danny (Chris Tucker). Pat soon learns that his wife, Nikki, has moved away and his father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), is out of work and resorting to gambling to earn money to start a restaurant. Pat is determined to get his life back on track and reconcile with Nikki, who has obtained a restraining order against him after the violent episode that sent him away.

But the two Hollywood stars who bagged the plum roles for the movie made the narrative engaging and delightful, training hard for their roles, including learning how to dance. They were not director Russell’s first choice for the material that he kept close to his heart, as inspired by Devereaux Glenholme School, a 12-month special education boarding school where Russell’s son is a student. But shine they did, and one of them romped off with the Oscar after tripping on her white embossed Dior gown.

The 38-year-old Bradley Charles Cooper, who first gained recognition in the TV series Alias and began his professional acting career in Sex in the City, earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor with Silver Linings Playbook. Gone were his windblown locks from The Hangover, as his closely cropped hair suited more his mentally troubled character. Though some critics sniffed at his performance, this writer was awed by the seamless way he pivoted from the highs and lows of the mood swings of the bipolar disorder, and the need for physiological movement to keep their equilibrium. He must have spent inordinate time observing manic-depressive people, which was the old term used for this condition.

Oscar wizards would taunt that he did not stand a chance with Daniel Day-Lewis portraying a much beloved American icon, Abraham Lincoln, but he delivered a brilliant mimesis of a character being chased by demons that infested his genes and his mind. Voted Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine the same year his father passed away in 2011, Brad, however, thumbed his nose at the Academy Award, telling British GC magazine: “I watched my father die and I realized that is the way we are all going to die. For me, it was a switch from knowing something intellectually to knowing it by tangibly experiencing it. It rewired my neurological system. It almost did the opposite of motivating me. It was about keeping the main thing the main thing.” 

And the Oscar, at least for the time being, is not Brad’s main thing. But one just wished he had brought home the statuette, seeing as how he has matured in his craft. His scenes with Jennifer were defining, his piercing blue eyes conveying agony and ecstasy, even in the dance floor where he reminded of a reluctant  John Tarvolta or Patrick Swayze.

The American actress Jennifer Shrader Lawrence, only 21 when she made Silver Linings Playbook, landed her first major role as a lead cast member on TBS’ The Bill Engvall Show (2007–2009) and she subsequently appeared in the independent films The Burning Plain (2008) and Winter’s Bone (2010), for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, Independent Spirit Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. She won the Oscar for Best Actress, having registered the poignancy of her role as Tiffany, a woman crazed by grief and desolation, trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel with her dance and later, beloved Pat.

The movie is not only about the personal triumphs of the two troubled characters but also of their families who stood by them through hell and back. Pat’s parents, especially his mother, nursed him back to mental health, firmly teaching him to be fully accountable for his actions (reminding him with love even when he would have a meltdown). The scene where he fixes the window he broke during one of his fits is one which every parent understands — one small step to maturity, by patient understanding. The tender moment when Pat Sr. pours his heart out to his prodigal son is unforgettable to every parent who has experienced heartbreak over the reckless exuberance of children. Tiffany’s parents allowed her to live at the back of their residence, and to design her own dance studio there, wringing their hands every time a strange man would drive up their lawn to have carnal relationship with their daughter. Both set of parents were steadfast, caught like all parents in the balancing act that only stops when they sign off this earthly life.

Brad and Jennifer, too, have their parents to thank in real life, for being the wings beneath their wings in the crazy ride that is tinseltown. The former acknowledged this by bringing his mother, Gloria, as his Oscar date, and the latter, by settling with her family in L.A., even when she could very well leave them behind in their native Kentucky.

Silver Linings is also a wake-up call for humanity, to look more kindly on the differently-abled among us. More and more, we are recognizing autism, Asperger’s, attention deficit disorder, learning and other disabilities — conditions accompanied by maladaptive social behavior, which when undiagnosed, can scar the lives of individuals and their families. The final sequence when Pat and Tiffany were competing with veteran dancers and getting their passable rating of 50 much to the consternation of the audience who felt pity for them, is the triumph of these broken winged birds (as Pat metaphored Tiffany) who are given the chance to soar despite the strong winds that could knock them out cold. By the unconditional love of their family and the mercy of God, who shows us the silver lining behind the clouds, comes their expiation from the debilitation of their isolating conditions. As John Milton, the English poet, first wrote in Comus’ lines, “Was I deceiv’d, or did a sable cloud/ Turn forth her silver lining on the night?”