THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE (CRAZY) LIFE

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2019)

Silver Linings Playbook is a milestone in cinema about people with mental health problems. Usually seen as dangerous (as in Hitchcock's Psycho) or funny (Levinson's Rain Man), people with mental disorders end up losing control of their bodies and are treated apart, trapped or overprotected as it happens in real life.
David O. Russell's movie attempts, and succeeds in a different way, to turn the dramas of two "troublesome" people into a romantic comedy.
Handsome, athletic, and confident, Pat (Bradley Cooper) manages to be released from a mentally ill hospital where he remained for eight months after beating his wife's lover and still has a restraining order from her. Diagnosed as bipolar, he returns to his parents' home under the responsibility of his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver).
The boy's father, Pat Sr., masterfully portrayed by Robert De Niro, also cannot be considered completely sane: stuck in a restaurant project, but unemployed, lives on bookmaking mainly football games, having an irrational passion for Philadelphia Eagles team, which is why he was banned from the stadium for fighting. Standing in front of the TV, he is convinced that a series of superstitious rituals can alter the outcome of the games.
The entry of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence, fantastic), a young widow who lives in the neighborhood, represents a balance in the plot not because she is understanding and welcoming Pat, but precisely because she seems to be as crazy as he is. During a discussion, they pass in front of a restaurant and, seeing the sign Dines, he invites the girl:

Do you want to have dinner with me? - and she, with a face of hate, responds:
Pick me up at seven-thirty.

Together, they comment on the effects of the various anti-anxiety and antipsychotics meds, and indulge in a ballroom dance project, which will be the movie's great climax: they will try to win a good position and still defend Pat Miller's ultimate bet.