Review: Silver Linings Playbook

No this is not a perfect film.
Yes, Jennifer Lawrence is superb as is everyone else. 
No the screenplay is not great and there are so many cliches especially at the end.
It is not a movie about two damaged people getting together.

It is NOT a movie about two damaged people getting together.

First it is about a particular dysfunctional family showing in a crystal clear way how the dysfunctional family creates madness. In this case what is diagnosed bi-polar disorder or ADD, for the purpose of labeling to prescribe meds.

In writing this book Jules Henry went to stay with a number of families. He ate with them, shopped with them, slept there, and went everywhere with them, recording everything. If you read it and then imagine living for awhile with the family in Silver Linings Notebook you will understand that it is not Pat who is damaged, but this entire American dysfunctional family that is damaged. They are the norm, not the exception.

Tiffany reads very much like Francoise Dolto in her case study Dominique: Analysis of An Adolescent Boy with her scene putting together the winnings of the teams and her presence with Pat during the plays of the teams. This is purely the chain of signifiers for those who have read and understood Lacan. If you haven't then it sounds crazy and schizophrenic. However it cuts into the resistance and resolves it, whether you are considering the case study or the movie.

These are two people who are realer than real. Our only way out of this mess we are all in.  Go on with your psychologizing and enter the "swamp of psychological interpretation" (Foucault) if you want. I won't meet you there.

http://www.amazon.com/Sanity-Madness-Family-Families-Schizophrenics/dp/0140211578/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362635350&sr=1-1&keywords=laing+madness+insanity

http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Oedipus-Capitalism-Schizophrenia-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143105825/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362635696&sr=1-1&keywords=deleuze+anti-oedipus