Essays: A Collection Of My Ignorant Analysis

Abnormal Psychology: Silver Linings Playbook

Abnormal Psychology: Brief(er) Movie Analysis

Second Semester

Junior Year, 2018

               The representations of mental illness in David O. Russel's Silver Linings playbook are pretty accurate until there is a tension with the viewer and the characters about what the resolution, or healing, of Pat and Tiffany's mental illness is. From the beginning of the film, it is easy to see that the film won't give a light-hearted, fluffy portrayal of the healing of mental illness; we can see this as Pat is going throughout the mental hospital, taking in the ideology of "silver linings" to cope, though he does not take his medicine and is cynical and distant in the group talks. We later see that this is due to him not believing he needed the mental hospital, and his only reason for holding on to the "silver linings" and going to the mental hospital was to be better for his wife. This shows that Pat took the coping and healing he wanted to take, for his own sake, and not what was best for him. Through these scenes, it's obvious that our main character will be stubborn. This stubbornness, however, is a great portrayal of true mental healing because most patients-especially patients who have have just been informed of their illness and are baffled by it- do not want to accept that there is something wrong or that there are more complex ways to solve a situation and look at a situation. Pat's continued irritation and mania is also an accurate depiction of some of the synonyms of Bipolar, however he does not depict the symptoms of mind racing; the annoyance of not being able to turn your brain off when in a state of mania. The only depiction of this, slightly is with the Hemingway novel. Most importantly, he does not show any of the depressive symptoms that Bipolar people experience, and we saw more than a few weeks of his life-indicating that we should have seen the "dip" or other side of his Bipolar condition. Though, we did not, and because of that this film depicts Bipolar as just an aggressive and hypo manic illness when, in reality, it is a splitting moods with very different moods occurring for very long times (with each mood) and dipping into the next mood. Pat, however, changes moods frantically and instantly which is not the reality of this mental illness

          However troubling this aggressive stigmatization of Bipolar is, there are several de-stigmatizing scenes within this film. For example, the conversation between Tiffany and Pat about mental health medicines was de-stigmatizing because it allowed the viewer to realize these sort of medicines are not all that foreign or "weird" and the fact that they could connect because of that is a great scene for people suffering with mental illness as it shows that they are not alone. This scene also allowed for greater explanation of these drugs, as they were pronounced correctly and used in casual conversation rather than only in the medical field.

          Another scene that de-stigmatizes mental illness, I feel, is the scene where Tiffany is trying to understand Pat's relationship with his wife and how it is any healthier than her own lonely calls. This scene is good because it shows the introspection and logic that mentally ill patients still retain. Sometimes mentally ill people are seen as unintelligent simply because a portion of their brain does not function "normally"-this however is debunked by Tiffany's questioning. I think that's important.

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