Silver Linings Playbook's representation of mental illnesses

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2014)

In the "Silver Linings Playbook" I believe that mental illness is portrayed incorrectly. Even though the movie is set over a longer period of time than what I first thought, I felt as though the recovery of the main characters and the problems they were experiencing were resolved all too quickly. I understand this is a movie and there is a lot to cover over a short 2 hour period, however I think they could have made this movie more accurate. Pat's character was apparently suffering from bipolar disease, yet in my opinion, the spectrum and expressions of this disease were not fully shown. The symptom of Bipolar addressed in this film consisted of Pat's occasional manic episodes and breakdowns, I felt as though the director could have shown the depressive side also, perhaps when reading the books and letters or thinking about his ex wife; Nikki. Tiffany was illustrated to have been suffering from grief and I thought this role was played nicely. Tiffany's vast emotions put forward in each scene were quite accurate and she held up the disease throughout the movie as opposed to Pat who seemed to have gotten over his disease with what seemed to be four counseling sessions, two periods of taking his medication and some physical exercise; slightly unrealistic. Pat's Father obviously suffered from a mental illness also, perhaps OCD, although this characteristic was not explored at all and I believe it would have been a key in the heredity of Pat's illness and therefore definitely should have been explained and not kept in the back of the viewers mind as an unanswered question. Overall this movie was a good attempt at portraying mental illnesses to the viewing audience, however it wasn't as realistic as it could have been and there were improvements that could have been made to this film to accurately represent mental illness in society.