Finally An Emotionally Gripping Mental Health Drama

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2019)

2 December 2012. Certainly not a Hemingway movie. Finally a full feature film with mental health as its central core that captures the visceral and authentic impact of mental illness without the cliques, stereotypes. At it is for the fact that director/writer David O. Russell avoids these pitfalls that allows the real captivating and emotive vibrancy of the this family and relational drama come alive. Such movies don't need the extra baggage of sweeping epic dramatization as The Sound of Music (1965) and occult horror special effects Constantine (2005) or unusual circumstances as Fly Away Home (1996) or The Wrestler (2008) to create fascinating characters and situations from fantasy and instead can follow a well-written script to make its emotive impact as Where the Lilies Bloom (1974) or even the more unlikely intensity surrounding Elizabethtown (2005) or A History of Violence (2005) or the exotic foreign look into Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Helen (2009) opened the door to mental illness as a decent movie drama sub-genre by itself following up with the authentic human drama found in Margot at the Wedding (2007). Silver Lining Playbook is a penetrating look at the behind the close doors and sometimes not so closed doors of real life disputes, family conflict without resort to hyper-drama disconnected with most lives in America or around the world as A Beautiful Mind (2001), The Fisher King (1991), or He Was a Quiet Man (2007). Even a relatively common as unemployment and poverty might be as depicted in Seven Pounds (2008) or even more closely aligned in topical matter to The Soloist (2008) dealing with schizophrenia, Silver Lining Playbook focuses on our family or a family that we likely know.
Silver Lining Playbook stands out from even Girl, Interrupted (1999) for its more accessible look into a family that that most in America can relate to in the family room, bedroom, in public streets, a cafe instead of hidden away residential facilities. Unlike Lars and the Real Girl (2007), the humor in this movie is in part based on our own uncomfortable feelings that are touched so much closer to home, a laughter based on the intensity of mental illness and the embarrassment that we might feel if we actually acknowledged the tragedy that periodically occurs in this movie, like slapstick comedy of the silent movie era. Much like John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) made everyday things such a dog into a horror creature, Silver Lining Playbook allows its audience to take everyday life and begin to understand how any of our lives or those around us can be so easily touched by mental illness or the polite facades and idiosyncrasies we all surround ourselves with.
Silver Lining Playbook might be more closely compared to a more upbeat Little Miss Sunshine (2006)or the more artistic and polished American Beauty (2000) or the contemporary plight of economic recession on family man in Up In The Air (2009) or the more straight forward dance movie of Shall We Dance (1996 and 2004) or a raw dramatic look at family life of the 1950s of The Tree of Life (2011), the darker A Day of Wine and Rose (1962) which presented a stark and tragic look at alcoholism.
Except for the ending, Silver Lining Playbook represents a significant and daring family drama presentation of mental illness, though perhaps in the tone of Pat from the movie, this definitely isn't Hemingway and thus makes it the perfect movie, if wants to throw Hemingway out the window.