So, I’ve thought about this a lot, and what I suspected about Silver Linings Playbook but didn’t want to commit to immediately (when I wrote the first post) turns out to be true upon reflection.
The film made me feel profoundly lonely and sad, and any film that makes me feel something so deeply is worth considering.
I wonder if there is a bit of a gender gap here. Anecdotally, I find women are much more engaged by the film than men. I’ve heard some grousing, too, about the Hollywood ending, which I interpret in a different way.
Surely, there is a silver lining in most things in life when we look for meaning (how else could we keep going in the face of adversity?), but I don’t think there is reason to believe definitively that the characters have been able to invert the cosmos in perpetuity so that the lining becomes the cloud. Silver Linings Playbook captures a series of moments – some transitional, some volatile, some painful, some cathartic, some small, some revelatory, some…well…lots of other things, too, including happy and joyful and companionable to a lesser degree. You get what I mean.
There is one moment in the film that I keep thinking about more than the others and, not coincidentally, it seems fitting to discuss on New Year’s Day. When Pat’s father (played by Robert DeNiro) says to him: “You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this, it’s a sin if you don’t reach back,” I was nearly moved to tears, though not the happy kind.
It’s not a total surprise to see this in the film – part of the line was featured in the preview trailer – but it is no less true for seeing this coming. Especially because there are fewer of those moments and opportunities in life than we expect. This, I think, is a big part of why the film affects me the way it does.
Media Critic Mary Dalton 