May is Mental Health Awareness Month/Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Retro Review

Hello everyone and welcome to Movie Goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the KB Radio Network.

I am your host Kevin Reed and in case you all don't know,

the month of May of every year is Mental Health Awareness Month.

I am a huge,

huge advocate for mental health,

and not just in the month of May,

but 365,

24-7.

It is important,

especially when it comes to the black community,

because this is a mental illness that is not talked about enough in the black community.

And honestly,

in all communities,

not just the relegated to one particular race or community.

Mainly saying that because I'm a part of the black community.

I know how it's treated in the black community.

But all races,

ethnicities,

sexualities,

nationalities,

they all have mental health issues.

Everybody,

everybody walking planet Earth has a touch of mental health illness in some shape,

form or fashion.

It may not be as big as,

let's say.

schizophrenia it may be something traumatic that happened to you well there's something that happened to you in your childhood that that's just steering your life as a grown adult and you really don't know why you you don't know why

you act the way you act or feel the way you feel about a certain issue or how you conduct yourself but it could have been how you was brought up and

you know a lot of that is oftentimes is put on the parents put on how your parents raised you and stuff like that but they also had mental health issues past trauma childhood trauma that went

untreated and they just passed it on it's a generational thing in some cases in most cases and so if we don't cut it off at this generation or your children's generation and

start a new start focusing on your mental health start talking about your mental health start talking about the things that have been troubling you throughout your life and or traumatized

you as a child or even as an adult things that have just warped your mind in a way that you know this isn't normal you know that this doesn't feel right yet

you can't help yourself but to do the things that go against what i guess for lack of a better term common sense would allow you to do you know you know better but for some strange reason you can't do better and that's all part of mental health you know and and

yes there's the other illnesses that are widely known you know schizophrenia um uh bipolarism uh anxiety depression and all these other good things uh well not good

But all these other things that trouble millions,

if not billions of people every single day.

And so the awareness of it all is for us,

all of us,

me included,

to get a check up from the neck up.

We have to open up to people.

You know,

I think about when

I was a child.

you know and this didn't particularly come from my dad or any of my parents or anybody around me it was just kind of a unwritten rule you know crying when we grew up crying

was a no-no especially for a boy if he was male crying was a no-no because it was looked upon as being weak oh don't cry it don't matter what happened you're gonna get hit by a bus

oh get up and just rub some dirt on it and keep walking you know don't cry don't show any emotion and that was supposed to toughen you up you know because you was considered weak or or a wimp if

you cried in front of people or you showed that you were vulnerable so in an effort to make you hard,

you know,

make you this tough,

grizzled man.

You became this

Guarded?

Dis-dis-hardened?

Calloused?

human being that doesn't show emotion that doesn't open up to whether it be your significant other or your your loved ones around you you know your parents your your brothers sisters whoever friends best friend co-workers you bottle all that stuff in and you never open up to people you never show them or tell them how

you truly feel what you're thinking at that moment and relationships

suffer because of this and i know this as a fact you know i i have uh in my past relationships even current that i had trouble opening up and it

was not because of that person it was because the person before them did you know i've been hurt in the past you know so i didn't want to open myself up to be hurt again no matter what the that

No matter what it was,

you know,

I just didn't want to be hurt,

you know,

because it hurts.

Nobody wants to be hurt.

Nobody wants their feelings crushed,

their heart broken.

That is devastating.

And so in an effort to protect my feelings,

I just closed myself in.

But relationships suffer because of that,

you know,

and I'm just talking about my marriage.

I'm talking about friends.

I'm talking about loved ones.

you know i was i was guarded with everybody i didn't show who i was somebody told me one time this was years ago he we were uh i forgot what the meeting was it could have been at work or somewhere but uh the guy said like man i can read everybody here except

you and i took pride in that because at the moment at that time i didn't want nobody to read me i didn't want anybody to know what I was doing.

thinking i didn't want anybody to know how i was feeling you know i just wanted to be i just wanted to do what i had to do and go about my business you know that's the attitude i had but in the grand scheme of it all you know i was suffering on the inside holding all that stuff it deteriorates you from the inside out and

now i now i sit here and i'm trying to rebuild myself from the inside out.

I'm learning to love myself.

so I can love others properly because that was one of the realizations I went through when I went through my little uh self-intervention invention that I had that

I I truly didn't love myself because I didn't know anything about myself I was so gone I would even guard it from myself that's how guarded I was you know I didn't want to express feelings and Once again,

I want to go back.

Nobody.

taught me this you know this wasn't preached to me in any shape form or fashion by anybody i know it was just something that was a part of me i was so guarded and i guess a lot of that comes from the trauma i went through as

a kid being picked on and bullied and insulted in school you know being to this day to this day uh and i'm knocking at 50s door and

until this day i can't get over sitting in a classroom where it was like okay today is pick on kevin day and everybody in that class just had an insult for me and

that includes the teacher it was everybody in the class and it was it was the most depressing day of my life because i felt like nobody liked me

nobody liked me and i did nothing and that's what made it even worse i didn't say nothing i didn't do anything to instigate this i i was just coming into school like i was supposed to and i got demolished in that classroom and

from that moment on i just kept to myself i just i didn't speak to nobody uh oddly enough i still made friends i still had a ton of friends in school i don't know how

I really don't know how,

but

I really didn't want to be bothered.

You know,

I was friends with these people.

Some of them are still friends to this day,

but

I really didn't want to be bothered.

You know,

it's good that I got some really good friends during my childhood.

But

I said all that to say that a lot of that came,

a lot of how I felt with the guard,

guarding my feelings or trying to protect.

my feelings came from a lot of that you know a lot of that in school and

I never told my parents that I never went ran home and said oh they pick it over you know because once again I didn't want to show my emotions and so I just kept it all to myself and for the better part of 40 years it just ate me up you

know I never got revenge I never uh uh built up the courage to come back at them you know I didn't care about that because it didn't it didn't erase what happened you know I thought about it

I thought about insulting him because I could read with the best of them,

but I just didn't didn't have any desire to,

you know,

I didn't care because it wouldn't erase what took place.

But

I thank God that I'm in a better place now.

I feel like a brand new person.

You know,

the problem I have now is trying to convince others that I'm not the same person that I used to be.

I'm the same.

but i'm not the same you know i'm not i'm not guarded i'm willing to talk i'm willing to open up i'm willing to have those deep conversations with others express my feelings you know tell them about myself you know tell them uh

what my thoughts are and and it's it's weird to a lot of people you know when i talk now uh this podcast helped i will say that uh talking uh

to all of you for the past how long i've been doing this for four years it's been it's been helping you know so i'm glad i'm on the right track but like i was saying to start off this show this is mental health awareness month i'm just making you aware of what i went

through you know maybe maybe my little story may inspire you to uh uh take some of the locks off you know to crack that door open.

And if that's the case,

I'm happy to be the jumping off point for a lot of you out there.

But this year's theme for Mental Health Awareness Month is more good days together.

And basically the theme is encouraging us all to reflect on what a good day looks like,

both for ourselves and for our communities.

wherever you may be together we can use the insight to connect people to the right support at the right time and shape education and community engagement to make more good days possible for

all and i i can't echo that enough the fact that you can't fight this battle on your own it's the hardest battle to fight on your own well one of the hardest battles

fight on your own and you need help man you we all need help and we all need to talk to somebody or get encouragement from somebody if if not a therapist if not a psychologist maybe

you know if you're a spiritual person maybe it's your preacher your priest or your pastor if you're not a spiritual person maybe it's just your mom or your dad or it could be your significant other

It could be your best friend.

It could be anybody,

but you have to talk to somebody just to get it out.

Maybe,

you know what the best,

the best conversation you can have is with somebody who just listens,

who just listens.

They don't have to give their opinion.

They don't have to give their insight.

They don't have to tell you what to do.

Sometimes the best conversation.

you can have when an individual is an individual who just sits there shuts up and just listens because half the time we can be we could we could just need to release

we could we just want to release keeping all that stuff bottled in it's like pressure it's like any pressure applied on a pipe all that water and you put if the pipe is clogged up

Eventually that pipe is going to burst if you keep running the water through.

And so you need a release in talking to somebody,

just opening up,

allowing yourself to open up and stop being afraid of being judged.

Just just let it out.

Now,

if you got some perverted,

demented stuff on your mind,

yeah,

you do need to seek some serious help,

please.

here are some key facts about mental health i was rambling on i was supposed to start off the show with it but

but here we go um despite overwhelming need for mental health treatment nearly 30 million people across the united states don't have access to affordable health care mental health care and

substance substance use treatment you know uh which is also a contributing factor around one in five adults experience any mental illness in the past year

One in 20 adults experienced serious mental illness in the past year.

One in five youths have a mental health condition,

with anxiety being the most common of these conditions.

Globally,

about 35%

of mental illness emerged by the age of 14 years old,

with nearly

63% appearing at the age of 25.

years old in 2023 20 of high school students in the united states actually considered committing suicide see these are troubling numbers and statistics uh especially if these individuals uh

not or not being treated or not in any type of mental health care and so it is it is frightening And this is why.

months like these are are paramount super important to get the word out to get get the conversation going to help out especially especially that uh high school statistic with

20 of high schoolers who are considering suicide i mean that's it there let me say like this in no time in no time i don't care if you're in high school college

a career driven person in their

40s it doesn't matter what the age is suicide should be the furthest thing on your mind and you're talking or listening to a person right now who has considered and even attempted once to commit suicide in

his life and it's it's troubling to hear that number i know one time that i attempted i was in high school

So I would be in that boat.

I'll be in that 20,

you know,

if you go back to the

90s, late

90s. And so it's troubling that it's still a problem now.

And for high schoolers to feel like that,

and life hadn't even began yet.

They haven't even experienced life.

They haven't experienced the hardships of trying to pay your rent or pay your mortgage and go to work every day.

a job that doesn't appreciate you trying to keep your marriage afloat and keep it on track and making sure the kids are taken care of that they have food to eat that they could go to a good school and hopefully do better than you actually did growing up you know because all parents want their children to do better than what

they did you know like succeed more than what they did and it's

troubling to know that high schoolers that kids who still stay at home with mom with zero responsibilities well i'm not going to say zero but definitely not as much as an adult who are off on their own uh

are troubled to the point where they want to just check out and a lot of it a lot of it is not bully bullying you know it's not just bullying and i know that's the go-to it is a factor

for a lot of a portion of that 20 is bullying but some of it is that these children are dealing with some childhood trauma they are dealing with some issues that

they don't know how to handle and part of that is because they don't have the resources that schools don't have on on-site counselors like that,

you know,

they don't

have access to a therapist and all this here now in this day and age with the advent of the internet and all this other stuff yeah you can probably hop online and google a therapist uh there's a service what uh

what is it better health or something like that i think you can get access to that on the internet and all that good stuff which is great you know but a lot of that you have to pay for and these kids

half of them don't have jobs you know if they do have jobs they're working at burger kee to mcdonald's making nothing you know and their mind is on buying shoes and clothes and you know iphones and all that good stuff and so they're not worried about uh paying for therapists so

there's there's a lot that uh adults need to step up and do uh to try to help kids with mental health

Just...

for an example like me like when it came to my kids i knew i knew that is a genetic thing i knew that whatever it was i had i probably passed it on to one of my girls and

so that was my biggest fear as a father so i tried my best to try to steer them you know away from all of the trauma that i had to go

Now,

you know,

you can't stop everything.

I couldn't be with them 24-7,

and there's a lot of things that did slip through the cracks,

you know.

But

I did do my best,

and I think that they did turn out better than I did.

It wasn't,

you know,

they didn't just flow through their childhood sliding on a rainbow.

You know,

there was some rough patches there,

like any other.

teenager and all this other stuff went through the same things like any average teenager or uh adolescent but for the most part i kind of steered them away from the big ones you know the you know with the drugs and the teenage pregnancies and that stuff okay we avoided we dodged that bullet we

managed to dodge that bullet but there's still a lot more you know mentally

that uh i tried to help him out with as well uh trying to express my experiences through high school i think my girls were the only ones that i actually opened up to that i actually uh told them what

i went through as a child as as a young adult and all this other stuff you know i tried to tell them that look in the event that y'all go through abc

here's xyz because i went through it i've been there done that so i i know how you're feeling and and for the most part it worked because they'll come to me about certain things now today they'll come to me about certain things that they

think that i can relate to as long as there's no female issues because i'm i'm the last person you want to talk to well you need to talk to your mom

but other stuff is uh they do open up and talk to me about that and that was another great thing because you know kids don't want to talk to their parents about nothing and they're so gaudy that's every kid but because i was with my parents

you know i didn't tell them everything i felt like i knew everything and most kids feel like they know more than their parents which is the craziest thing ever uh because i look back now and think about how stupid i was

the people lived through everything it actually worsted me my my my parents grew up during the jim crow era and so i think in rural mississippi so i i think they i think their experiences were just a tad bit more uh

elevated than mine but i felt like i had it going on now we fast forward to 2026 and it looks like we're getting back into the jim crow era but that's another show for another day.

i i'm glad that my girls opened up to me half the time well not half

75 percent of the time it was stuff i didn't want to hear it was stuff that i didn't want to listen to because i go into dad mode you know i want to be like wait well hold up wait you did what you talked to who he

wants to what you know it's stuff like that but i have to be

an ear you know going back to what i was saying a little while ago sometimes you just have to listen and i just listened to them when they directly asked me for advice i gave them the advice i you know what i thought you

know i tried to give them their independence and you know enough not full independence i'm still daddy but i try to give them some sense of independence to try to think on their own to figure it out because

Sadly,

daddy is not going to be around forever.

And that day could be today,

tomorrow,

next week,

whenever.

I need you to be able to make a decision on your own.

And so that's that's why I kind of,

you know,

gave him that little independent thing.

But I'm going once again on a little tangent.

You know,

that's another thing with my mental illness.

I just

I ramble.

I ramble a lot.

I ramble when I talk about something that's passionate to me.

And this is very passionate to me because it's serious.

This is a serious thing.

There's a lot of people who are walking around with these mental illnesses.

that are unchecked and think they're all right look at mac any who's more good days together uh let's let's seek some help let's let's focus on those who really

need help let's try to help those who need help uh whatever we can do reach out talk you know be that ear be that be that that shoulder

you know a beat be all you can be and if you are somebody uh that person that needs a shoulder that needs to be talked to that needs somebody to uh uh listen to you seek somebody out before you take the the nuclear route you

know seek some help out you know and there are services out there there are programs out there there are resources out there that can help you uh you

they're not super accessible unfortunately but you can find them just do a little research do a little research before you do something crazy don't do anything crazy you know seek the help speaking of seeking help let's let's let's go into our review today a film that

came out in 2012 it is none other than silver linings

playbook this is a film written and directed by david o russell starring bradley cooper and jennifer lawrence which got her an academy award for best actress in this film her performance in this film was awesome

but this film tells the story of a man with bipolar disorder who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves in with his parents who are played by robert de niro roll.

and Jackie Weaver.

He's determined to rekindle his love or restore his love with his ex-wife,

and he meets a young widow named Tiffany,

played by Jennifer Lawrence,

who offers to help him in entering a dance competition with her.

The two become closer as a team,

and

Pat, who is our main character,

his father,

and Tiffany examine their relationships with each other.

as they cope with their own individual situations uh i've never was a big david o russell guy you know this before all the stuff came out on how he directs a set you

know never was a big david o russell guy at least his films three kings were fine i like three kings but i never i never liked any of his other movies they were they all the same to me they all felt the same

um until the fighter came out love the fighter and i love this film silver linus playbook does not screen kevin reed this is not the movie that i would normally run out to go see in fact i didn't run out and go see this movie i saw this when it came out on uh uh hbo or

cinemax wherever it was but

I waited until he hit the television screen.

finally checked it out and i i instantly regretted it i was like man this is a really good movie this movie is super good it's so good the performances are great the uh story is awesome you know it's relatable everything

about it was just fantastic in the film it just focuses on you know navigating life with this bipolar disorder and

trauma and it emphasized that healing is supportive you know it is sharing the journey rather than an individual one it also highlights family dysfunction you know between black

bradley cooper's character and robert de niro and all this here that dove into that you know love's power

you know the power to rehabilitate love is the key love is the answer it doesn't matter what the question is and then it skates that thin line between normal and unconventional behavior and so it showcased this and i look

when i when i saw bradley cooper's character with this bipolar disorder it echoed somebody who i know personally who has bipolar disorder and i saw

elements of this individual that i know in bradley cooper's character that's how i know he was nailing it he was eaten in this movie but the key themes of the movie you had mental health and resilience the resilience man because

uh you had pat who is bradley cooper's character he has bipolar disorder and you have tiffany played by a day academy award winning jennifer lawrence she she was dealing with depression and trauma

and so they're both dealing with their own issues and you know and they come together unknowingly this wasn't the nucleus of their quote-unquote relationship you

know to try to fix one another or try to cope with their problems or their issues that wasn't the reason but it organically turned into that and another great thing about this movie it kind of redefines normal what is normal

what i mean really when you really sit down and think about it what is normal now everybody walks around here and think that they're normal everybody uh a serial killer think he's normal everybody thinks they're normal so what is the true definition of normal there

isn't any true definition there's no there's really no such thing as normal it's a subjective concept it's something that we conjure in our mind that,

okay,

this is how i am so it works for me i'm happy so it must be normal but on the outside looking in so i may look at you and be like oh you weird you know and vice versa you know it there's

no real definition of normal i don't i don't think that exists and i think this film highlights that in such a unconventional way but uh a way that it actually you

worked i could give props to david o russell it's cool the way they use the uh philadelphia eagles the the the football team as kind of a metaphor for all that in the film and it is it's

it's genius i think it's genius and the way the movie plays out with the healing through action and routine you know with the dance competition and uh it was there

therapeutic for pat and tiffany because it represents structure it represented a goal it represented uh uh bringing some type of stability into their lives and it was a nice nice

little nugget you know to put in there adds that force you know something that they can focus on something that these two characters with two different two vastly different

mental illnesses can find one common thing to help them and at the same time draw them together and connect it was awesome awesome i thought it was beautiful but the standout in this whole movie is of course jennifer lauren now

i make no bones about it you want to talk about crush

I would risk it all for Jennifer Lawrence.

I have the biggest crush on Jennifer Lawrence.

And this movie,

this movie,

I think is where it all started.

I think this was the movie I looked at her and was like,

man,

she is unbelievable.

She is unbelievably gorgeous in this movie.

And then you add on the fact that she acted her butt off in this film.

She does her best acting with David O.

Russell.

It's something about that connection.

All directors have that muse,

you know?

For Martin Scorsese as Robert De Niro,

latter in his career,

it was

Leonardo DiCaprio,

you know?

They have that connection.

They just get each other.

Same thing here with David O.

Russell and Jennifer Lawrence.

They've been in,

I think,

three movies?

They made three movies together?

All of them,

Jennifer Lawrence gave some powerhouse performances.

This one gave her,

got her an Academy Award.

I think the other one she was nominated for,

if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah,

it was

American Hustle.

She was nominated for that.

And Joy.

Yeah,

three times.

The three times she worked with David O.

Russell,

she's been nominated and won one of them.

That was for Silver Lining's playbook.

Look,

man,

her performance was so good.

You forgot about everybody else.

You forgot what

Bradley Cooper,

and he's the star.

We're following his character.

But you can't help but follow her character and what she's going through,

because what she's going through is equally as traumatic.

And once again,

another nice nugget about this movie is the fact that no mental illness was greater than the other.

Everybody got their fair share,

equal share,

you know,

to showcase the fact that all mental illness is an issue.

You know that

they're all on the same level it all needs to be treated it all needs to be cared for in the same matter uh the silver lining playbook if you've never seen it it is really really good it's it's one of those sneaky great

movies that you would probably put this film in your top

20 if not 10 but you know i i wouldn't go that high with it but i i think it's in my top 20 i think it's in My top 20 is fevered.

films and it really all because of jennifer lawrence it is not because i was crushing and gushing and drooling over in the movie no her performance was dynamite she she was amazing in this movie one of the best performances i've

seen in a long long time but silver linings playbook gets a letter grade of an a that's really good movie and it it is it's one of those films that...

that really is not to make fun of mental illness.

It's really to showcase it.

It's really to bring awareness to it.

And I think it fits the theme of this year's Mental Health Awareness

Month.

Everybody, thank you for joining me for this show.

I really do appreciate everybody who checks out the show,

who supports the show,

who...

continuously comes back and listen to my reviews to my commentary to me ramble about nothing it's it's truly a help to my mental health and so i really really do thank you all from the bottom of my heart if

you need help in regards of your mental health or somebody you love i'm gonna put a link to the mental health uh website that maybe it can help you out it'll be in the description of this show.

Everybody,

thank you for joining me.

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to movie goodness here on the kab radio network everybody thank you for joining me for this little chit chat about mental health awareness month this month the month of may where the theme is more good days together want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you

all be blessed

May is Mental Health Awareness Month/Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Retro Review

About this episode