As an objective movie goer, I liked Silver Linings Playbook. It stands firmly on the line between independent (first half) & mainstream (second half) film. If you watch a lot of Barbra Streisand films where she plays the unconventional clever girl and then as the movie progresses, she becomes glamorous & desired, i.e. Barbra Streisand. Bradley Cooper convincingly plays a man struggling with how to reenter society and dealing with mental illness until he becomes essentially Bradley Cooper. In the first half, the movie gets a lot right about mental illness: how dominant your own thoughts are, waking up yourself & others in the middle of the night, inability to pass for “normal” even as you take the appropriate steps. In second half of the film, mental illness morphs into the traditional Hollywood trope of an eccentric, adorable world that is heart-warming and works if you mildly go along with it and are fueled by love. As a subjective movie-goer, as if. If you go along with it as a bystander long enough, your life is consumed by insanity and vampiric routine. It is not cute. It is not eccentric. It must be fought with medicine and reality checks because in the end, you will be bankrupt and I’m not talking about money. You will be bankrupt of spirit, joy and love.