"This is what I believe to be true... You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining."
During my sophomore year of high school, there were times when I was really bored and unhappy. I was struggling balancing two AP courses, playing basketball, being involved on campus, and going back and forth between my mom and my dad’s house each week. I distinctly remember watching the 2012 Presidential Election right before going to bed and feeling completely drained. Basketball season had just started and I had finally finished studying at around midnight. My eyes were burning and I was exhausted and it was only Tuesday. I was kind of resigned to everything.
About a week later, I saw a trailer for a movie called Silver Linings Playbook and it was the first true awards-bait type film that I felt like I had to see. I liked all the actors in the movie and it was pleasantly surprising to see Chris Tucker in a film not called Rush Hour. Some of it had to do with the fact I had a mini-crush on Jennifer Lawrence but that’s beside the point. The film seemed so natural and so real. Two people with mental illness support each other when everyone else, including their families, has given up on them. Their lives have been reduced to nothing and they’re just trying to build themselves back up. Even though this part of it hooked me, I just thought Silver Linings Playbook would be like another Crazy, Stupid, Love. Boy, was I wrong.
Unfortunately, I did not see the movie opening weekend because my stepmom did not want to see it at the time so we didn’t go. I don’t know what changed the following week, but my stepmom was singing a different tune. All of a sudden, she became the biggest promoter of the movie and we went that Saturday evening. Not to be dramatic, but my life (and moviegoing habits) changed.
About a week later, I saw a trailer for a movie called Silver Linings Playbook and it was the first true awards-bait type film that I felt like I had to see. I liked all the actors in the movie and it was pleasantly surprising to see Chris Tucker in a film not called Rush Hour. Some of it had to do with the fact I had a mini-crush on Jennifer Lawrence but that’s beside the point. The film seemed so natural and so real. Two people with mental illness support each other when everyone else, including their families, has given up on them. Their lives have been reduced to nothing and they’re just trying to build themselves back up. Even though this part of it hooked me, I just thought Silver Linings Playbook would be like another Crazy, Stupid, Love. Boy, was I wrong.
Unfortunately, I did not see the movie opening weekend because my stepmom did not want to see it at the time so we didn’t go. I don’t know what changed the following week, but my stepmom was singing a different tune. All of a sudden, she became the biggest promoter of the movie and we went that Saturday evening. Not to be dramatic, but my life (and moviegoing habits) changed.
The film just felt raw. Nothing felt like it was being sugar coated by Hollywood movie magic. You really felt for every main character in the film. You want Pat and his dad to reconcile even though you never really see what emotionally separated them. The film communicates their emotional distance through the characters’ reactions to each other and the nonverbal cues/body language they give off. It doesn’t spoon feed you. Silver Linings Playbook respects you as an audience member and trusts you to figure out the character dynamics. David O. Russell gives you the equation and you solve for the variable. He doesn’t just solve the problem for you. Through this process, you learn about the characters just as you learn about someone if you were meeting them for the first time.
This is when I started looking at directors and writers of films in order to gauge the type of films I normally gravitated to. I read reviews of movies and I started reading movie/TV news in order to keep up with the latest projects in development. I learned about David O. Russell’s next project, American Hustle, and immediately noted its release date. I made films like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty (the best film of 2012, in my opinion) appointment viewing. I watched more independent films. All I knew was that I wanted to watch more films that cared for and developed its characters as much as Silver Linings Playbook did.
This is when I started looking at directors and writers of films in order to gauge the type of films I normally gravitated to. I read reviews of movies and I started reading movie/TV news in order to keep up with the latest projects in development. I learned about David O. Russell’s next project, American Hustle, and immediately noted its release date. I made films like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty (the best film of 2012, in my opinion) appointment viewing. I watched more independent films. All I knew was that I wanted to watch more films that cared for and developed its characters as much as Silver Linings Playbook did.
About a year and a half later, I started Cinema Literature as a movie analysis website where I would discuss how characters changed in the course of certain films and Silver Linings Playbook was one of the first movies I wrote about because it is one of my favorite films of all time and holds a special place in my heart.
Everyone has that lynchpin moment that tells him or her, “I want to create something like that because I want to make people feel how I feel right now.” Without Silver Linings Playbook, I probably would not have considered seeing films like American Hustle, Whiplash, Margin Call, La La Land, The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Spotlight, Sicario, and much much more. And I probably never would have written a screenplay just for the fun of it.
Everyone has that lynchpin moment that tells him or her, “I want to create something like that because I want to make people feel how I feel right now.” Without Silver Linings Playbook, I probably would not have considered seeing films like American Hustle, Whiplash, Margin Call, La La Land, The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Spotlight, Sicario, and much much more. And I probably never would have written a screenplay just for the fun of it.