Silver Linings Playbook (失戀自作業)

Unless out and about in the countryside clicking shutters, Sunday afternoons usually are colorless and dull. Not so this Sunday despite an overcast sky and little  chance of any good photos at all. Out of sheer boredom, I risked a Hollywood movie. When the trailers for coming attractions were over, I was set for what I thought would be a run of the mill Hollywood production, a film called Silver Linings Playbook, written and directed by David O Russell, based on the novel of the same name by Matthew Quick and and starring Bradley Cooper as Pat, Jennifer Lawrence  as Tiffany, Robert De Niro as Pat Sr., Jacki Weaver as Dolores, Chris Tucker as Danny, Anupam Kher as Dr. Cliff Patel, John Ortiz as  Ronnie, Shea Whigham Jake and Julia Stiles as Veronica.  But it taught me that one should never to go into to a movie house with pre-conceptions.

Pat, who was suffering from a bipolar disorder with tendencies towards compulsive behavior and bursts of sporadic violence was admitted to receive voluntary psychiatric treatment at a luny bin as a result of plea bargaining at a Baltimore court for beating the hell out of his wife (Nikki)'s lover, a history teacher and her colleague, after he was separated from her, thought that he was well enough to be discharged after 8 months there although the shrinks did not think so. But his mother Dolores agreed with him and signed the relevant papers for his discharge with the blessings of a court order she got on behalf of her son but only on condition that he continue to observe the injunction or
restraint order by the court which prohibits him from approaching anywhere within a distance of 500 feet from his former school and/or his wife Nikki and that he continue to receive psychiatric
treatment by an approved psychiatrist Pat got home and met his dad, Pat senior, a Philadelphia Eagles fan, who unbekwonst to Pat, had just lost his job and was now living on base ball bets, with dreams of eventually opening a restaurant with his winnings but who had not been told of his return. He hugged Pat but he had his doubts and then asked him to watch on the gawk box a base ball game in which Philadelphia Eagles would be playing apparently because he wanted to bond with Pat but really because he superstitiously.believed that whenever Pat was with him to cheer the Eagles, they would win and then with the betting winnings, he would be closer to his dreams of opening his restaurant. After getting home at last, Pat was working hard to put his life together again, reading, jogging, trying to look for jobs etc but his overriding goal was to be reunited to Nikki. He was convinced that if he worked hard and show improvement, Nikki would have him back.

The story really got going when one day, he met his old buddy Ronnie in the neighborhood and was asked by him to have dinner with him. He went and there met Tiffany, Ronnie's wife Veronica's younger sister, an unusually blunt and direct woman who offered point blank to have sex with Pat after the dinner at an independent unit at the back of her relative's house. Pat refused
because he did not want to be infidel to Nikki, whom he still deeply loved. Then whenever he went on his daily jogging, Tiffany would magically appeared at the right time to chat him up. Pat tried to push her off but with scant success. And in the course of such jogs, Pat learned that Tiffany's husband Tom died some three years ago in a motor accident whilst on his way back from Victoria Secrets in the hope of adding a little excitement to their conjugal bed. To help her forget the trauma of Tom's death, she had sex with all 11 staff of the company where she was then working, male and female, as a way of relieving her emotional pain but was instantly fired when she filed charges of sexual harassment against her boss for his unwelcome attention. But when he learned about Tiffany's what led her to her present condition, they understood each other because she too was also on psychiatric pills and fully understood their effects, something Pat hated.When she learned how much Pat wanted to write to Nikki, she promised to deliver his letter to her because she still met Nikki at her sister's house from time to time. But she had one condition: Pat must be her dancing partner in a dancing competition for which she was preparing herself. Pat was overjoyed and agreed to her condition. She taught him all the steps and he seemed to be doing fine. His mother Dolores found Pat a much happier and more well adjusted person each time he returned from his dancing sessions. The big day was coming. His father wanted to bet all that he had won on an Eagles match and asked Pat to join him in watching it on TV but Pat didn't because he had promised Tiffany to do dance practice . Pat Sr. lost and blamed Pat for not watching the game with him but Pat astounded everyone when she came to Pat house to berate him for failing to keep his promise and when he heard Pat Sr. putting the blame on her, she reported the exact score of the Eagles each time she was with Pat and proved that each time Pat was with her, the Eagles won. Pat Sr.had to reluctantly agree that she was right and then begged the bookie Jake to relent and gave him one last chance to win back double all that he had lost on his next bet . After some hesitation, Jake agreed but added one condition, Pat and Tiffany had to get at least 5 points out of 10 in the coming dance competition. On 28th December, the day of the match and also the day of the dance competition, all the friends and family came out in full force to cheer Pat and Tiffany, including Danny, a close friend he made at the mental institution and Ronnie, and his wife Veronica and Nikki and even Pat's shrink. Dr. Cliff Patel.  As expected It was a happy ending: Pat Sr. got back double all he had lost and Pat and Tiffany exactly 5 points but when she saw Pat whispering in the ears of Nikki, Tiffany left. Pat ran after her and declared how he loved her and told her how he knew that she never really delivered his letter to Nikki and how Nikki never wrote a reply to encourage him to do something to prove that he was fully recovered, as Tiffany had earlier told him. Through all the drama, there was one fairy god-mother working behind the scene to keep the whole family together. It was Dolores who always kept herself quietly in the background whenever the men were talking and who would step in only when things got a bit too violent. We learned later that it was really Dolores who telephoned Tiffany about Pat's jogging times.!

There were also some sub-themes in the film relating to how his friend Ronnie was suffocating from all the pressure of work as an estate agent, of family and children, how Pat was just a chip of the old block, since Pat Sr, himself was a compulsive gambler also subject to bursts of violence for which he was banned from attending any baseball stadium, how he admitted he was partly responsible for Pat's plight because he had focused all his attention on his elder brother and neglected Pat and how important mutual support between friends are and how it was that what came out of the mouths of people whom society regarded as socially mal-adjusted or "mental" may often speak the unvarnished truth about how things really are instead of the kind of falsehood which society required the "normal" to repeat but such sub-themes were merely touched on and not really developed. For a Hollywood film, the plot is not bad and there were sufficient surprises to keep one's interest from flagging. Neither the cinematography and the music is anything to rave about. What made the film watchable however is the excellent acting of all the actors and actresses. What I like about the acting is that none of the actors and actresses "over-acted", something which some of the Hong Kong movie "stars" need to learn. For her part as Tiffany, Jennifer Lawrence won an Oscar as the best actress last year. She fully deserves it.  Although the other actors and actresses did not get any award, they were excellent in their own way..