Silver Linings Playbook

What's in it for me?

Now if you're planning to see this flick, and you want to go in cold, stop reading right now. Not that I'm gonna reveal any more than a typical reviewer, but I want to evade the mountain of abuse I'm gonna get from those who no longer realize that secrets are passe, and forgotten just about as fast. Hell, Jill Kelley was last week's news!

This movie has gotten the best reviews this year. I wish I could concur. I wish I could recommend you see it. But it's really two different movies in one. A serious drama and a screwball comedy. "Rachel Getting Married" and "It Happened One Night." Furthermore, who knew that bipolar disease could be cured by love? You leave the theatre having enjoyed the ride, but believing whatever substance was involved was thrown out the window in a quest for laughs.

Yes, Bradley Cooper is bipolar. As a result, he loses his wife.

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. He finds her in the shower with a colleague from school, as his wedding song plays on the boom box.

This all happens early on, don't get pissed at me, this is the kind of stuff you see in the trailer. Hell, the trailer was the best part of "Argo"...it included almost all the footage of Alan Arkin and John Goodman, the former of whom could very well be nominated for an Oscar, deservedly so. Then again, if you're involved with the CIA are you really worried about ruining a take?

Ah, now I've gotten too inside baseball. If you haven't seen "Argo" you're clueless as to what I'm talking about. But I don't recommend that flick either. It's great, but then the bad guys chase the good ones down the runway and as a friend of mine said...in reality, the jeep would be blown off the tarmac!

So, Bradley Cooper is deservedly pissed. I mean could you get that image out of your head? Of your spouse in the shower with someone from work, while your wedding song is playing in the background? Could you ever hear that song again? Hell, I can't even go to the same restaurants we used to frequent.
Yup, the first half of "Silver Linings Playbook" freaked me out. Because it was all about unrequited love. Wanting to get back together...even though the other has sent strong signals it's over. Hell, sometimes they even want to get back together, all you've got to do is say yes, but you know you can't do it, that your life will end if you go back, it takes every ounce of strength to say no.

But you don't stop thinking about them.

And that's the movie I thought I was seeing. About Bradley Cooper's realization Nikki wasn't coming back.

That wasn't the movie I saw.

The movie I saw was mentally ill boy meets mentally ill girl and they fall in love, with a bookie dad and a Marisa Tomei performance in the middle. Yes, when Jennifer Lawrence points out the truth to Robert DeNiro, and DeNiro ultimately nods his head in agreement, you smile.

But before the movie takes this turn you cry.

Jennifer Lawrence's husband has died. How... You know how guilt plagues you forever? That comes into play. And then she sleeps with everything that moves and then she wants Bradley Cooper to participate in this dance contest with her and that's when she comes up with the initial line...

That's what stuns me about life. The takers. If you don't say no, they'll never give up. They play friends, but really they just want a favor. That's why I never talk on the phone. You've got to endure twenty minutes of weather and sports to get to the part where they ask you for something you don't want to give.

And part of you likes them.

But they're never really interested in you.

Can you just say no?

But the givers are afraid of being closed out. Of being rude.

But at some point you become fed up. Like Jennifer Lawrence. You're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.

And that's when you start to get what you want.


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