John McGowan
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| Silver lining or more rain? Photo: By Im Unicke |
I’d been avoiding Silver Linings
Playbook. Nothing against it particularly, it’s just that Very Serious films
about mental health always feel like a busman’s holiday. I got corralled into
seeing it by the missus though, more observant than me, who had clocked that a)
it was warmly sentimental, and b) it featured a dance contest. These days
plucky young hoofers channelling Patrick Swayze are all I ask of a film. And if
someone is also (spoiler alert) saved by the love of a good woman, then my cup
runneth over.
As well as Jennifer Lawrence’s
Oscar, the talk on the internet has been about how realistic SLP is (or isn’t),
and what it tells us about social attitudes to mental illness. Opinions are
split between those who see it as a ground-breaking and nuanced portrait of people
having emotional difficulties, and those who view its happy ending as idealised and simplistic. Lawrence has been lauded
for her portrayal of Tiffany, the aforesaid good woman, who is frequently a bad
girl as she seeks to drown the pain of widowhood. This makes her, according to
your point of view, either an ideal candidate or the worst possible bet to get
things together by dancing/falling in love with fellow recoverer Pat (Bradley
Cooper).
