Silver Linings Playbook

Plot

After eight months of treatment for bipolar disorder, Pat is released from a mental health facility in Baltimore, and returns to Lansdowne, Pennsylvania into the care of his father Patrizio and mother Dolores. Pat soon learns that his wife, Nikki, has moved away, and that his father is out of work and resorting to illegal bookmaking to earn money with the hopes of opening a restaurant. Pat is determined to get his life back on track and reconcile with Nikki, who obtained a restraining order against him after a violent episode sent him away.

While talking to his court-mandated therapist Dr. Carol Patel (Cliff), Pat explains why he was hospitalized: Coming home early from his high school teaching job after getting into an argument with the schools principal, he had found his wife in the shower with the history teacher from his school, and nearly beat the man to death. Despite this, Pat doesnt believe that he needs a medication to manage his condition. He tells Carol that he has taken a new outlook on life. This is a reference to the name of the film, as he attempts to see the good, or "silver linings", in all that he experiences, however challenging. As part of this outlook, and transformation, he has lost weight and has attempted to read the books that his wife Nikki teaches to kids at her school.

At dinner with his friend Ronnie and his wife Veronica, he meets Veronicas sister Tiffany, a young widow who also lost her job. Tiffany and Pat develop an odd friendship through their shared neuroses, and he sees an opportunity to communicate with Nikki through her. They get together to eat at a diner and after an argument in the street, Tiffany comes to Pats defense after the police come and he hears his wedding song that drives him crazy. Tiffany eventually offers to deliver a letter to Nikki if, in return, he will be her partner in an upcoming dance competition. He reluctantly agrees and the two begin a rigorous practice regimen over the following weeks. Pat believes the competition will be a good way to show Nikki that he has changed and become a better person.

Things go well for Pat until his father asks him to attend a Philadelphia Eagles game as a "good-luck charm", partly because he has bet virtually all of his money on the outcome. Pat asks Tiffany for time off from practice to attend the game, which she begrudgingly allows. Tiffany also gives Pat a typed reply from Nikki, in which she cautiously hints there may be a chance for a reconciliation between them. While at the game with his friends, Pat gets involved in a fight after seeing his brother get slapped, and he is hauled away by the police. The Eagles lose the game and Patrizio is furious. Tiffany arrives, and also berates Pat, pointing out that the way she is "reading the signs," the Eagles do better when she and Pat are together, as they won every game they played when Tiffany and Pat were spending time together. Patrizio, now convinced that his son being with Tiffany is actually good luck, makes a parlay with his gambling friend that if the Eagles win their game against the Dallas Cowboys, and if Tiffany and Pat average a score of 5 out of 10 in their dance competition, he will win back double the money he lost on the first bet. Pat is reluctant to participate in the dance contest under those conditions, goes outside to re-read Nikkis letter, and notices that it also refers to reading the signs, realizing that Tiffany actually wrote the letter. With the Solatanos finances in danger, Tiffany and Pats mother persuade Pat by telling him that Nikki will be there.

Tiffany, Pat, and their friends and family arrive at the competition on the night of the football game. Tiffany despairs when she finds that Nikki is in the audience as well, so Tiffany leaves the ballroom and starts drinking with a stranger. Pat finds her and practically drags her onto the dance floor. They begin their routine as the Eagles defeat the Cowboys.

At the conclusion of their set, Tiffany and Pat score exactly 5 points. Amid cheers from her family and confused looks from the crowd, Pat approaches Nikki and speaks quietly into her ear. Tiffany sees this and storms outside. Pat leaves Nikki behind after a short conversation, intent on finding Tiffany. Pats father informs him that Tiffany left and tells him that he loves her right now and that it will be a sin if he does not reach out to this moment that life has given him. Pat tells his father that he loves him, then runs after Tiffany. He hands Tiffany a letter that he wrote for her, in which he admits that he knows she forged Nikkis letter. He confesses his love for her and that he loved her from the moment he met her, and apologizes that it took him so long to come to terms with this. They share a kiss, become a couple, and Patrizio opens a restaurant with the money he has won. The final moments in the movie between Pat and Tiffany show that both of them are no longer wearing their wedding rings.

Development

Renee Witt, an executive at The Weinstein Company, convinced Harvey Weinstein to option the book on which the film is based, doing so before it was published. Sydney Pollack then began developing for David O. Russell to direct. Pollack told Russell that the film adaptation would be tricky because of the storys mixture of troubling emotion, humor, and romance. Russell estimates he rewrote the script twenty times over five years. Russell was drawn to the story because of the family relationships and the connection he felt to his own son, who has bipolar disorder and OCD.

The film was shot on a 33-day schedule. A darker, more extreme version of the dance sequence was filmed and scenes with De Niros character were shot in multiple versions, with the character harsher or warmer, as Russell worked with editor Jay Cassidy to set the balance they wanted.

The locations are Upper Darby, Ridley Park, and Lansdowne, small communities just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although not mentioned by name in the film, it is credited at the end, and a police officer can be seen wearing the initials "RPPD" on his collar.

The film takes place over the second half of the 2008 NFL football season, which saw the Philadelphia Eagles advance to the NFC Championship Game. Several games are mentioned, including the Eagles victories over Seattle and San Francisco, their losses to the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants (which was the game Pat was attending when the fight broke out), and their victory over Dallas in the seasons final game.

Casting

Russell initially intended to make the film with Vince Vaughn and Zooey Deschanel, but went on to make The Fighter instead. Mark Wahlberg was set to work with Russell for the fourth time but had to drop out after delays in production created a scheduling conflict.

Russell had originally planned to work with Bradley Cooper on an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, having been impressed with Coopers performance in Wedding Crashers, citing his "good bad-guy energy" and unpredictability as justification for casting. Cooper told Russell "he had been heavier and angrier and more fearful" at the time of that performance and had drawn on those feelings for it. Russell was excited that Cooper would bring those qualities to Pat Solitano.

Anne Hathaway was cast as Tiffany Maxwell, but due to scheduling conflicts with The Dark Knight Rises and creative differences with Russell, she dropped out. Other actresses who were considered for the part included Elizabeth Banks, Kirsten Dunst, Angelina Jolie, Blake Lively, Rooney Mara, Rachel McAdams, Andrea Riseborough and Olivia Wilde.

Initially, Russell did not believe Lawrences age was suitable for the role. He thought Lawrence (21 at the time of filming) was too young to play against Cooper (38), but her audition changed his mind, admitting that the "expressiveness in her eyes and in her face" was "ageless". Russell compares Lawrence to the character Tiffany, describing her as confident but one of the least neurotic people he knows, with the confidence and glimpses of vulnerability needed to play Tiffany. Tiffany went through several iterations. She was initially meant to be a goth. Lawrence dyed her hair black and did test shoots in heavy goth makeup, but Weinstein disapproved. The final version of her character remained messed-up yet confident, with small goth touches such as the dark hair and a cross. Specifically for the role, Lawrence was asked by Russell to put on weight and to speak in a lower register.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Lawrence said she didnt have a handle on Tiffany at first, which was what excited her about the role. "She was just a character I 100 percent did not understand at all... Shes like, Im messed up, Im not like everybody else, Ive got issues. Take it or leave it because I like myself."

Lawrence and Cooper had no previous dance experience. In less than a month, Mandy Moore, a choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance, taught them the dance sequences. Moore describes Cooper as having "some real natural dancing ability". Lawrence said of the climactic ballroom dance, "None of that was improvised, absolutely not. Im a terrible dancer, so I would never have been able to do any of that. When it finally came together, that scene really was just as fun as it feels."

Release

The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2012, where it won the Peoples Choice Award. It received a limited release in the United States on November 16, 2012, opening wider later that week. It also opened at the 2012 Mumbai Film Festival on October 18, 2012.

The Weinstein Company initially planned an unusually wide release for Silver Linings Playbook, going nationwide on an estimated 2,000 screens. They were encouraged by positive reviews and hoping to capitalize on Thanksgiving to do more business. Instead, they took a more slow-burn approach, opening in fewer theaters, expanding gradually, in a strategy to build up word-of-mouth support. Continuing the slow release the film expanded to 700 theaters on December 25.

Critical response

Silver Linings Playbook premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and was critically acclaimed. The film has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 227 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The consensus reads, "Silver Linings Playbook walks a tricky thematic tightrope, but David O. Russells sensitive direction and some sharp work from a talented cast gives it true balance." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film holds an average score of 81, based on reviews from 45 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Cooper and Lawrence were lauded for their performances. Kevin Jagernauth of The Playlist praised the film as "an enormously entertaining, crowd-pleasing winner" and noted that the performances from the two leads were "carefully developed, and perfectly pitched", deserving of awards. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said that "the chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence makes them a delight to watch" and that their performances anchor the ensemble cast who also give great performances even in small roles. Rooney also complimented the "invigorating messiness" and "nervous energy" of the choreography. Richard Corliss of Time magazine also applauded the performances of the leads, particularly Lawrence, stating that her performance is "the reason to stay" to watch the whole movie, and praising her maturity.

Russells direction was also widely acclaimed, with Justin Chang of Variety writing: "Never one to shy away from unlikely sources of comedy, David O. Russell tackles mental illness, marital failure and the curative powers of football with bracingly sharp and satisfying results." Eric Kohn of Indiewire gave the film an "A-" grade, praising the performances of both Cooper and Lawrence and also Russells directing, stating that "both as solo screenwriter and director, Russell assembles a small, bubbly cast for an unexpectedly charming romcom that frequently dances — at one point, quite literally — between cynicism and bittersweetness with largely winning results." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post remarked on Russells skill, noting how "in any other hands, the adaptation of Matthew Quicks novel would be the stuff of banal rom-com fluff or, perhaps worse, self-consciously quirky indie cliches."

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four stars, saying that the film was "so good, it could almost be a terrific old classic" and described Russells screenplay as "ingenious" for the way the major concerns of both the father and son pivot on the final bet. Kenneth Turan called the film "a complete success" and the actors performances "superb," including Chris Tucker in an "irresistible" supporting turn. Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the film "a transcendent endeavor, from its exhilaratingly smart screenplay... to the unexpected and moving turns of its two leads." Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post praised how the movie managed to maintain "the laughs, giddy anxiousness and warm butterflies from the trailer" for its entire length. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "one of the years best movies. Its crazy good."

Negative reviews of the film came from The New Yorker, whose critic David Denby called it "a miscalculation from beginning to end" and found Coopers character "tiresome", while Richard Brody found Linings perhaps to "be the years most artificial movie" and "the plot [...] utterly ridiculous." In a rare step outside the magazines typical practices, Brody revisited the movie and wrote a complementary review, once again condemning it as having "no characters but sets of switches, each of which has a binary set of options and all of which have to line up for things to come out right." Brody wrote, "Im finding it hard not to make fun of the movies highly constructed and narrow-bore array of givens, of plot points and their resolutions."

Both critics found Lawrences Oscar-winning performance "unconvincing." Denby wrote, "we dont believe [Tiffany] for a second when she says that, in her grief, she “had sex with everyone in my office.” Lawrence is tough and proud, and always plays strong, and the remark doesnt track with anything we see onscreen." Brody finds Lawrence, "a poised and graceful actress", who "has none of the wildness that her character needs—and that lack of wildness is part of the reason for the movies success."

Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph wrote that theres a "tiring fruitlessness to the mayhem", describing the lead character as a "rambling headcase", though noting Lawrence as the films "only silver lining". The Globe and Mail???s chief film critic, Liam Lacey, gave three out of four stars, but wrote "you can easily see Silver Linings Playbook as a better-acted version of any number of Sundance-style films about quirky outsiders who find a common bond."

The NFL was critical of the gambling in the film and declined to broadcast an interview with Bradley Cooper and Chris Tucker during Thanksgiving.

Box office

The film earned $443,003 in its opening weekend from 16 locations, facing strong competition from films including Skyfall and Lincoln. Expanding to 367 locations in its second week, the film moved to ninth place with $4.4 million. By December 30, it was showing at 745 theaters and had earned $27.3 million. On January 18, 2013, it earned $12.7 million when it expanded to 2,523 theaters, which boosted its total to $56.7 million. In its second weekend of playing in over 2500 theaters, its sales only declined by 12.2%. Gitesh Pandya stated it was well on its way to reaching the $100M mark and could go much higher if it remained durable over the weeks.

Ray Subers forecast the film would earn $100 million, predicting that the film would start slow but keep going through December and gain a wide audience, bringing in fans of Lawrence and Cooper from their work on big franchise films, The Hunger Games and The Hangover, respectively. The film surpassed the $100 million mark in North America on February 19, 2013. As of May 11, 2013, the movie has become a sleeper box office hit, making over eleven times its budget.

Accolades

It was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director for Russell, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Actor for Cooper, Best Actress for Lawrence, Best Supporing Actor for De Niro and Best Supporting Actress Weaver; with Lawrence winning for Best Actress.

Top ten lists

Soundtrack

Silver Linings Playbook: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, released in the United States by Sony Music Entertainment on November 16, 2012 for digital download.

The lead single from the soundtrack, "Silver Lining (Crazy Bout You)" peaked at #100 in the UK Singles. The soundtrack includes music from Stevie Wonder, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Alt-J, Eagles of Death Metal, Jessie J and two tracks from the score composed by Danny Elfman.

Not featured on the soundtrack are "Wild Is the Wind" performed by Nina Simone, which is played at the start of the films end credits and "Misty" performed by Johnny Mathis, which is played after Pat & Tiffany learn they received an average of 5.0 for their dance number. Also not on the soundtrack is Led Zeppelins "What Is And What Should Never Be", The White Stripes "Hello Operator" and the opening numbers of their dance scene Stevie Wonders "Dont You Worry bout a Thing" and The White Stripes "Fell in Love with a Girl".

Score

Danny Elfmans score for the film was released on digital download by Sony Music Entertainment simultaneously with the song album.

Home media

Silver Linings Playbook was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 1, 2013 in the UK and was released on April 30, 2013 in the US.