An excellent glimpse into insanity

Rating: 8/10 (13 November 2012)

Silver Linings Playbook is an excellent glimpse into insanity. This isn't so much a romantic comedy as a crazy romance. Pat (Bradley Cooper) lost it when he caught his wife having an affair with another teacher. Now he is trying to get it together so he can get back with his wife. She has a restraining order against him, but he believes that, if he can just become the man she wants him to be, she will take him back.
Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) never really had it together to begin with. Her husband died and she is also trying to put her life together, trying to become the person she always wanted to be. Neither one is having much luck on their own, but together they just might be able to help each other out. Tiffany agrees to get a letter to Pat's estranged wife if he helps her with her dream – to take part in a couples dance competition.
Sliver Linings does a good job of showing what it is like to live with and be around someone who is not mentally stable without it seeming like a cliché. Parts of this movie can be uncomfortable, they are meant to be. Neither of the main characters has much of a filter and tend to say what they think as they are thinking it.
Pat comes by his insanity honestly. His dad is OCD and fanatical about the Philadelphia Eagles (The movie is set in Philadelphia.) There is no miracle cure for anyone in this movie. What the characters do find is support. They have to learn to live with and accept each other eccentricities. In this regard Silver Linings tends to reflect real life, because in the end, that is the basis that all good relationships.