Sort of a Film Review: Silver Linings Playbook

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Initially, I was skeptical about Silver Linings Playbook, but it disabused me of the misconception that all rom-coms are silly affairs in which an attractive young woman and man fall in love after overcoming a series of obstacles. SLP, like other movies of the genre, shows us that the quest for love is universal. Its two protagonists, played by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, are very pretty, as you would expect. I had dismissed Bradley Cooper as an exceptionally good-looking comic actor, and I wasn't familiar with Jennifer Lawrence. However, she won me over as the wounded yet feisty and self-aware young woman; I found her character so intriguing I forgave her being so young, talented and beautiful. And, I gained an appreciation for Bradley Cooper as a man with bipolar disorder just released from a long stay in a psychiatric hospital. His performance did not embarrass; he didn’t simply play “crazy.” Instead, he played a man whose capacity for suffering emotional pain was monumentally greater than most people’s because of the illness. 

As a mental health professional, I appreciated how the film treated mental illness with depth, humour and fairness; I am hoping that it can lift the some of the stigma that keeps people from accessing mental health services. 

These are some of the reasons why I recommend Silver Linings Playbook:

1. By no means should Cooper’s character be mistaken for a clinical case study of bipolar disorder, but it portrayed BD's main features in a believable way. Also, his father's (played by Robert DeNiro) compulsive and superstitious dependence on numbers was a lighthearted look at OCD-like behavior, perhaps to suggest that predisposition to mental illness can be hereditary. 

2. The movie shows that character's bizarre behavior of Bradley Cooper's character did not come about in a vacuum (it's important to note that he did not have delusions or hallucinations, symptoms of psychosis). The distress of catching his wife with another man had triggered his hypersensitivity to a full-blown episode of mania and depression (although we did not see his depressive symptoms). His reaction went above and beyond the "functional range" of emotional response, and, as a result, he was hospitalized. Symptoms of mental illness, especially mood disorders, are extreme (pathological) reactions to life’s inevitable ups and downs, and they are disruptive and upsetting to the sufferer and their family and friends. But, the point is that everyone of us have experienced these symptoms to some degree, because this is what it means to be human. 

3. Medication works. It does not “cure” but, under the care of an able psychiatrist, it can manage and control the symptoms and improve the quality of life for the patient and their family. It enables the patient to work, be in relationships and seek talk therapy to complement the pharmacotherapy, which only addresses brain chemistry. The most effective treatment for mental illness is drug therapy with concurrent psychotherapy. 

4. People diagnosed with mental illness have unique personalities and real lives, and they are capable of great achievements. They are more than their symptoms or diagnosis. One can LIVE with mental illness.

5. Mental health professionals are real people. We have real lives that are sometime messy and have interests outside work that may seem incongruent with what we do professionally. However, I am not a fanatical fan of any sports team.