I saw “Silver Linings Playbook” the other day. It’s a good, solid movie, following the basic outlines of your standard rom com, but unafraid to mix the usual sweetness with more than a bit of bitterness. The performances were very good all around – especially the feisty but never caricatured Jennifer Lawrence and the scene-stealing Chris Tucker – but what stayed with me most about the film is its sophisticated use of music, from both the original score by Danny Elfman, and pop music sources (I guess you could have seen that coming).
The movie opens with a smooth, subtle, funky number, buoyed by fat, Matt Chamberlain-esque drums and wurlitzer piano. It was sonically slick and created a complex feeling of darkness hiding just below the surface of a typical autumn Sunday in the northeast. I was convinced the music had to be by Jon Brion, as it bore his aforementioned stylistic trademarks and canny ability to create just the right ambience for a scene without overwhelming the action. I was thus very surprised when the generally goofy and bombastic Elfman’s name came up during the credits. He gets major props for showing off a sophisticated side to his musical personality that hasn’t really come out before.
But while the score was certainly effective at undergirding the emotional feel of every scene it colored, it was the use of preexisting music that pushed and pulled the movie around in unexpected ways. Like in Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” from earlier this year, a piece of music becomes a major plot point. For “Playbook” main character Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), it’s Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour,” his wedding song, and the song that’s playing when he finds his wife cheating on him with a history teacher at the school where they teach.¹ Every time he hears the song, whether at his psychiatrist’s office, or the local movie theater, or sometimes just in his own head, he snaps, putting his life outside the mental hospital where he spent eight months in jeopardy. As the movie chronicles Pat’s attempts to control his outbursts and his reaction to the song, “My Cherie Amour” is gradually transformed into another Stevie Wonder song – “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.” When Pat decides to enter a dance contest with similarly troubled friend Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) in the hopes of reengaging with his estranged wife, their routine begins with this song. You can tell that Pat is getting better at dealing with his past when the two begin rehearsing with the song and Pat doesn’t even notice that it’s Stevie Wonder. [Spoiler alert] When the pair (comparatively) nail their routine in the movie’s final scene, the artist that represents Pat’s worst moments now pushes him through his greatest triumph.
While this transformation of Stevie Wonder’s music from associations with pain to ecstasy is not the subtlest use of pop music to undergird a film’s plot, you totally buy it because of how this musical plot interacts with the other songs in the film. Interspersed between renditions of “My Cherie Amour” and “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” are songs by Led Zeppelin, 2012 breakout band Alabama Shakes, and in some especially poignant moments, Dave Brubeck (his joyous and cute “Unsquare Dance” and unimpeachably graceful rendition of “Maria” from West Side Story”). The emotional range of the music used in the film is quite staggering, approaching Wes Anderson territory. The songs pull you back and forth through varied emotional states, attempting to create the same emotional bipolarity in the viewer that the main characters experience. This emotional whiplash reaches an apotheosis in the final dance competition scene. While the other, more serious contestants dance to canned salsas and bossa novas, Pat and Tiffany begin their routine with the aforementioned Stevie Wonder tune, which gets awkwardly and hilariously interrupted by the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl.” The studio-perfect elegance of Stevie’s tune couldn’t be more contrasting with the thrashing, garage-composed White Stripes anthem. I couldn’t stop laughing with delight for the next two minutes.
And then all of that raucousness dies off, leaving behind Brubeck’s “Maria.” Paul Desmond’s airy alto sax sucks the air right out of the room, leaving a vacuum of focus on the two dancing protagonists. When the pair nail their big move, it is not accompanied by applause and sweeping strings, just the Brubeck quartet’s cool and calm demeanor. The fact that triumph is not accompanied by musical euphoria as well shows that Pat and Tiffany have a new control over their feelings, no longer whiplashed between extreme highs and lows.
While this final dance scene may not reach the sublime Andersonian heights of a “Rushmore,” it’s crafty use of music shows how “Silver Linings Playbook” isn’t your average rom com. While the guy gets his girl in the end, the usual emotional cliches are discarded for feelings that are more honest and human. There are no straight love songs in the movie because they can’t encapsulate the dark and messy feelings the characters carry throughout the film. By using music as more than just sonic wallpaper, “Silver Linings Playbook” makes us believe in this happy ending.
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1. The real Pat Solitano’s trigger song (the movie was based on his memoir) was not “My Cherie Amour,” but Kenny G’s “Songbird.” Although I find this endlessly amusing, I am glad the filmmakers changed it because I don’t think I could get over it. It’s funny how changing one song could turn the movie into an absolute farce.
Kevin Laskey 