So maybe I'll never be more than a couch potato movie critic. So be it. Another thing is that I - so far - only write about movies that I like for one reason or another. I write what's in my heart, and that's good enough for me. That said, the latest flick to move me was The Silver Linings Playbook starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. And when I say "move" I mean... "shake." At the end of the movie, I was shaking. That has to be a good sign...
Before we go any further, I really shouldn't call this a movie review. It's really more of a post-viewing reflection based on what I saw. No summaries, no synopses. I highly recommend it to anyone, and you should certainly watch it to know what it's about, but that's not what this is. No spoilers here either. :)
And without any further ado...
You gotta love crazy people, right? Not the axe-murdering, psychopath type, of course. No one should love them. I'm talking about people who are just a bit on the fringe. The ones who don't always make sense when the words come from their mouths but whose logic inside their minds is impeccable. The ones who seem to operate on a different plane of reality. We say all the time that "we're all a little crazy," and that can be true, but most of us are pretty normal (read: dull), so we love those little flickers of madness, don't we? In The Silver Linings Playbook, everyone is a little mad, which makes for some funny scenes, but particularly the main two characters played by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. What is most striking, though, is that the challenges they face are all quite normal. What turns the usual scenario on its head is those crazy people dealing with relatively normal issues in a different way... in their own "crazy" way, if you will.
Here's a bit of craziness for you - there is no "playbook" in this movie. Spoiler? Nah, that's not what this is about. In fact, it's part of what got me thinking as the credits rolled, "Why is it called that? What's with the playbook?" There it is: This is life. There is no playbook.
Life is having things happen, dealing with those things in our own way, rolling with the punches (to be über-cliché)... figuring it out as we go. There are funny moments, poignant reflective ones, downright depressing ones, and everything else in between... it's LIFE. We see the two main characters literally running - constantly - from things, yes, but mostly toward, even when they weren't exactly sure what they were running toward. Just running, fighting it out, trying desperately to move ahead. One of the crazies at one point says, "Maybe we just know something you don't." Maybe they're right. After's all, it's what we do. There's this psychobabble phrase that's been imposed on us for years known as "fight or flight," but think about that for a second: When we're fighting aren't we running headlong into the thing that's troubling us? Fighting doesn't imply that we're stationary, rather that we're pushing back against the current instead of letting it take us.
That's real.
One of my favorite quotes from the movie came at the very end and went something like this: "The world will break your heart ten ways til Sunday... but the truth is I love Sundays." It's bittersweet, it'll beat you down and raise you up, but you gotta love it. It's life.
And without any further ado...
You gotta love crazy people, right? Not the axe-murdering, psychopath type, of course. No one should love them. I'm talking about people who are just a bit on the fringe. The ones who don't always make sense when the words come from their mouths but whose logic inside their minds is impeccable. The ones who seem to operate on a different plane of reality. We say all the time that "we're all a little crazy," and that can be true, but most of us are pretty normal (read: dull), so we love those little flickers of madness, don't we? In The Silver Linings Playbook, everyone is a little mad, which makes for some funny scenes, but particularly the main two characters played by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. What is most striking, though, is that the challenges they face are all quite normal. What turns the usual scenario on its head is those crazy people dealing with relatively normal issues in a different way... in their own "crazy" way, if you will.
Here's a bit of craziness for you - there is no "playbook" in this movie. Spoiler? Nah, that's not what this is about. In fact, it's part of what got me thinking as the credits rolled, "Why is it called that? What's with the playbook?" There it is: This is life. There is no playbook.
Life is having things happen, dealing with those things in our own way, rolling with the punches (to be über-cliché)... figuring it out as we go. There are funny moments, poignant reflective ones, downright depressing ones, and everything else in between... it's LIFE. We see the two main characters literally running - constantly - from things, yes, but mostly toward, even when they weren't exactly sure what they were running toward. Just running, fighting it out, trying desperately to move ahead. One of the crazies at one point says, "Maybe we just know something you don't." Maybe they're right. After's all, it's what we do. There's this psychobabble phrase that's been imposed on us for years known as "fight or flight," but think about that for a second: When we're fighting aren't we running headlong into the thing that's troubling us? Fighting doesn't imply that we're stationary, rather that we're pushing back against the current instead of letting it take us.
That's real.
One of my favorite quotes from the movie came at the very end and went something like this: "The world will break your heart ten ways til Sunday... but the truth is I love Sundays." It's bittersweet, it'll beat you down and raise you up, but you gotta love it. It's life.
Thanks so much, Olya! Happy you enjoyed it. :)
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