Why 'Silver Linings Playbook' is golden.

photo courtesy IMDB.com

Have you seen this movie yet?  If you haven't, you should.

Here is my short response as to why I liked it.

1.  It has Bradley Cooper. (Which, to qualify, my LEAST favorite role of his was in The Hangover series.  He really is so talented in his other movies.  All right, all right, he's also smokin' hot.)

2.  It explores the theme of mental health, outside of the psych ward.  

  There have been great movies about crazy people.  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "It's Kinda a Funny Story," or even "Girl, Interrupted," from which this blog's name is derived (first a book).  All take place in a psych ward.  If the setting isn't a psych ward, mental illness is usually a caveat theme.  In this movie, it was explored in the context of home life and was the main driving force.  It's estimated that one in four people have some form of a mental illness, so why don't we talk about it more?  Well, as my mom says, it's so negative.  Which leads me to my next point...

3.   It's funny.

  There was a time when I could not laugh about my illness.  It can feel so dark, hopeless, and grave at times, and is treated by others as taboo. This closet-minded mentality can make the monster seem so big and huge and scary (which, I am not trying to trivialize some of the dark things that come with it).  But that attitude of being afraid to even talk about it or acknowledge its existence is beginning to unravel as more and more mainstream figures "come out of the closet" as having these struggles.  And sometimes, it is almost necessary to poke fun at the absurdity of it all.  The movie does that, and to boot, it has a feel-good ending.  


All in all, I give this movie four little blue pills.  Which is my highest ranking, in case you were wondering.