#26 - Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook (2012), David O. Russell
0.5

I knew this film was going to be terrible. I just didn't realise how terrible it was until I actually sat down to watch it. The premise is bad enough, based around a man with undefined mental problems (Bipolar disorder) who gets released from a Baltimore mental institution into the care of his parents and returns to live in their family home. Somehow this is supposed to be the basis of a romantic comedy where this "crazy" guy meets a "crazy" girl and of course the two crazies fit together.

This film is not funny, it is mostly absurd and totally unrealistic. The acting is poor, especially by Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) who plays Pat and also Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) as Tiffany. This film is a terrible portrayal and representation of mental illness. With the issues never being explicitly stated or defined and instead exaggerates and generalises them. The acting is so bad that it is melodramatic and over the top. Neither of the two major characters are convincing and neither is there any "chemistry" between them. What makes it worse is that not only is the writing terrible, the performances melodramatic and unconvincing, the characters flat and one dimensional, but also the direction and camera work are totally ridiculous and over the top. The number of times cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (The Grey, Warrior) uses overt panning, swivelling and rotating/ circling shots around the characters is so distracting. It constantly makes you feel aware of the camera detracting from the "drama" or rather melodrama of the scenes. This arguably breaks the fourth wall and takes you out of the experience and instead focuses your attention on the camera movements themselves. And you can almost feel the pretentious "meaning" with the hand held camera moves as if the audience needed to be hit in the head to tell us...yes, the camera moves are shaky to explain that the characters are unstable. Although why we would need that to tell us is laughable since the characters are constantly acting in ridiculous and outrageous ways, and none of the action or cinematography is by any stretch of the imagination, subtle.

Perhaps worst of all is that this film runs for over 2 hours long. Further more, this film has received such widespread critical acclaim it is astounding. Receiving a whopping certified fresh rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is also hard to believe the amount of nominations this film has recieved and awards it has won. Including Jennifer Lawrence receiving a Golden Globe for best actress, which is utterly ridiculous as she gives a wooden performance working with a very thin character that is so unrealistic and lacks any real depth or conviction. Has the entire film critic community collectively gone insane? Many of the reviews praise both the performances and direction, astoundingly. It is saddening that in particular critics are responding to the subject matter and praising director Russell's tasteful adaptation of the novel. This is a crushing blow to breaking down stereotypes surrounding mental illness in the mainstream media. That intelligent film critics believe this film is a good portrayal of the issues.

This film is crushingly cliche and difficult to watch. None of the characters are likeable as they are neither sympathetic nor have enough character development and depth to make them interesting. Most of the time the characters appear to act randomly and have no serious motivation other than the superficial "motives" overtly and repeatedly stated in the dialogue.

This film is also so predictable within the rom-com format that to claim it is in any way "quirky" or "indie" is laughable. Also the film seems to divert into a sort of dance rom-com film for some unknown reason. Most of this film doesn't make any sense and is boring. It unfortunately seems to have become a trend in Hollywood to use harsh and heavy subject matter in superficial films as if using such dark or serious subject matter automatically elevates the material to a higher level. Unfortunately this seems to have been supported by the critical response. All you need to do is to pick some deep social issue and slap it together and hey presto you've made a brilliant challenging film with winning appeal. This film has won so many awards and been nominated for so many more, that it is embarrassing. Perhaps most of all for being nominated and awarded for "best screenplay" in many places including nominated for "best screenplay" by the Satellite awards, and Russell winning the Satellite award for "Best Direction". I cannot overstate how terrible this film is and it is so disheartening that not only do mainstream audiences embrace this film, but critics as well.

Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post wrote:

“Silver Linings Playbook” serves as a textbook example of why directors matter. In any other hands, the adaptation of Matthew Quick’s novel would be the stuff of banal rom-com fluff or, perhaps worse, self-consciously quirky indie cliches. Thankfully, this fractured fairy tale of mental illness, family drama, ragged romance and die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fandom has landed in the superbly capable hands of David O. Russell." (Hornaday, 2012)

Perhaps Hornaday (2012) should have stopped at "banal rom-com fluff, or perhaps worse, self-consciously quirky indie cliches" because that exactly describes the film. 

And Roger Ebert (2012) said in his review:

"We're fully aware of the plot conventions at work here, the wheels and gears churning within the machinery, but with these actors, this velocity and the oblique economy of the dialogue, we realize we don't often see it done this well. "Silver Linings Playbook" is so good, it could almost be a terrific old classic."

This respected reviewer of the Chicago Sun Times, must not have watched much European of Indie cinema if he thinks Silver Linings Playbook (2012) had "obligue economy of...dialogue"(Ebert, 2012) or perhaps he wasn't watching this film too closely. As this film in no way could become a "terrific old classic". 

I just find it astounding and disheartening that so many people seem to have embraced this muddled film that glosses over and trivialises such important and senistive issues. This film is an insult to those who live with mental illness and to their families, trivialising and misrepresenting their experiences. It is also frankly an insult to intelligent movie goers and to cinema as an art form. 

Among the few negative reviews is David Denby's (2012) review for The New Yorker stating that the film "is pretty much a miscalculation from beginning to end". Which sums it up nicely. 

The support cast are not much better than the leads as Robert De Niro (who knows what possessed him to take such a role) acting as the father plays his now standard slightly crazy overbearing father figure. Jackie Weaver is the hysterical and in-denial mother and no doubt "deserves" nominations and awards for much melodramatic screaming and crying. Also the inclusion of Chris Tucker as another "mental patient" is so unnecessary as his character is mostly irrelevant and the script struggles to find a use for him, plot wise. His performance is also terrible as he basically plays himself, whether this is perhaps the most authentic performances of the film, who knows, I guess it would be if he actually has a mental illness. 

I really struggled to find anything positive about this film and can't really justify even giving this film half a star, as the further into the film I got the more I hated it and the more bored and frustrated I became. This is perhaps one of the worst films I have ever watched and I can't think of anything that even slightly redeems it. One of the worst things was that the writing at times would seem ironic and interesting and you would wait for the pay off to be a joke/ trick or manipulation and then you realised that the over-wrought and melodramatic deliveries weren't meant as irony! All I can say is what can you really expect with actors from films like The Hangover and a director of films such as Three Kings and The Fighter. This film is definitely not a classic and should be shelved and quickly forgotten and perhaps only taken out in later years as an example of the current times and our prejudiced and stereotyped portrayal of mental illness for a self-serving commercial endeavor. 

References

Denby, David (2012). "The Silver Linings Playbook". The New Yorker. Retrieved Friday 8th February, 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/silver_linings_playbook_russell

Ebert, Roger (2012). "Silver Linings Playbook". Chicago Sun Times. November 14, 2012. 

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121114/REVIEWS/121119992

Hornaday, Ann  (2012). "Perfect models of Imperfection". The Washington Post. Friday November 16, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/silver-linings-playbook,1219201/critic-review.html

"Silver Linings Playbook" (2012). Rotten Tomatoes. 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silver_linings_playbook/