stefan miko

Silver Linings Playbook by David O. Russell (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook by David O. Russell (2012)

★★★★

April 2026

I had two and a half hours left on this already long enough 16 hours flight and wanted something light after a couple other movies. I was very tired but knew i couldn’t sleep anymore.I filtered the movies by Comedy and ended up seeing this one, I knew the name, and maybe the poster, but had no idea what was inside. Plus it’s tagged as comedy, i needed a laugh.I didn’t really laugh.I spent the majority of the movie wondering whether this was some kind of shutter island spiel. I kept on looking for something to come up and relieve the struggle of the protagonists.It felt hard, but there must have been a reason they were all going through it, right ? Some kind of plot twist that could help a second viewing and make the movie somewhat genius ? I kept on waiting for something, overanalyzing what was coming and not really appreciating what was presented for what it was.The plane started its descent, that’s when I realized that everything i saw was everything that was to take. No real second-order reading. No backstory to save them all from this mess. It was a rough and pure struggle of a community dealing with mental health issues. I had played a trick on myself and made me really reconsider my approach to taking a movie as it is.There were some really beautiful moments (some hard to watch and others less so), it was honest, and compassionate. In the end, it felt quite good to have experienced it. I still wouldn’t call it a Comedy though…

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