thoughts on The Silver Linings Playbook (spoilers)

There is a scene in this movie that is not in the book upon which it is based, and which I feel is really necessary to understanding the Tiffany character (Jennifer Lawrence), both for the audience and for Pat (Bradley Cooper). Pat's father, Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro), is freaking out because the Philadelphia Eagles lost a game that he had a lot of money riding on, and he's blaming Pat and Tiffany. He's very superstitious about the games, and he claims that the Eagles have been bound for a loss like the one they suffered that day ever since Pat started spending so much time with Tiffany instead of watching all of the games with his dad. Tiffany gets angry, and you think that she's going to go off on how stupid all of Pat Sr.'s superstitions are and how obviously her relationship with Pat has no impact on whether the Eagles win or lose. Instead, she starts rattling off a bunch of scores and explaining what she and Pat were doing during each of those games, explaining that the Eagles actually always win when she and Pat are together, and would have won that day if Pat had been with her like they'd planned. It's pretty brilliant; obviously, none of that has any impact on whether the Eagles win or lose, but Pat Sr. obviously believes that it does, and it's highly unlikely that someone telling him tht he's wrong is going to make him go, "Oh, okay. You're right." In a later scene, after Pat has realized that Tiffany has done something dishonest to make him realize that his marriage to his ex-wife is over, he will note that she "treated crazy with crazy," and yeah, when explained that way, it makes sense.

I recently read the book The Silver Linings Playbook and really disliked a lot of aspects of it, including the way that Tiffany manipulates Pat; I posted a review of it on Goodreads and was told that I just didn't understand it, and that Tiffany was helping Pat in the way he needed to be helped. The thing is that in the book you kind of have to figure that out for yourself and agree with her methods with no real explanation of them; the book is written in the first person from Pat's perspective, so at times it is very difficult to understand Tiffany, which is a real problem, because on the surface, a lot of her actions come across as pretty selfish/manipulative/etc. I found it amazing, in the movie, how just the addition of the scene with Pat Sr., as well as a couple of other similar scenes, made all the difference in making Tiffany's actions seem more acceptable.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, everyone. I don't care for Bradley Cooper and didn't like the book (as previously stated), but they made a lot of smart changes from book to movie that made the story work a lot better for me. In the book, Pat doesn't remember what he did to wind up in the psychiatric hospital until near the end, and Tiffany doesn't reveal the details surrounding the aftermath of her husband's death until late in the story, as well, and it just helped *so much* to understand why the characters are the way they are earlier in the game. Also, Pat Sr. is much kinder here, which also helped. I actually, despite all of the acting nominations that this movie has received, thought the performances were just okay. I liked Bradley Cooper here more than I usually do, but let's face it, he often plays complete douchebags, and his character on Alias was Just the Worst. Jennifer Lawrence mostly just gets to act angry throughout most of this, but she has some good moments, as in the previously mentioned scene with Pat's dad, as well as when she sees tht Pat's ex-wife has, in fact, come to the dance competition and just instantly bursts into tears.

Not bad, friends. Not bad at all.