Weird feeling

Sometimes I watch a movie that leaves me feeling...  well, I don't really...  just weird!  Someone asked me this weekend about the movie Silver Linings Playbook.  The person thought I might have seen it.  I hadn't.  I knew the basic plot of the movie and I felt like it could go either way--I could either really like it or really hate it.  There were some details of the story that you know going into it that made me a little uncomfortable about the characters.

So, I watched it today.  Granted, I did fast forward some clips.  But, I watched most of it.  At the end, I didn't feel better than I did before I watched it.  I felt puzzled.  I am still trying to figure out the message in the movie and what the author and director believe.

Here's my thought.  The movie seems to say that we just have to take people as they are.  Our world tells us this constantly.  I am who I am.  Love me the way I want to be loved.  

Tonight I was talking to one of my brother in laws who had seen the movie.  I have wanted to talk to someone all week who has seen it and hear what they thought of it.  It was interesting to hear his view of it.

He said that there's a lot of movies today that want to be "true to life".  And this film falls in that category.  Most of these films, though, end up with the main characters just slightly (if at all) better off than at the beginning of the film.  He felt this film did have a happy ending because it was a contrast to the other films he's seen of this type.  I can definitely understand why he'd say this.

One of the parts of the film that unsettled me was how the characters talk to each other.  I just don't talk to people the way the characters do in the film.  And I wouldn't.  The film is set in Philadelphia, an east coast city.  My brother in law explained that that's just how east coasters talk--which I knew from a friend who grew up in Jersey.  I grew up on the West Coast.  He said people on the west coast are passive aggressive.  I wasn't sure what to say--I think I might have disagreed.  But, later my husband explained to me how folks in LA are passive aggressive.  I have to be honest--I had never thought of this way.  So, let me explain.

He explained that the entire social culture of LA, in which you'll be nice to someone to their face and then talk behind their back is passive aggressive.  I could see his point.  He's right that a lot of emphasis is put on appearances.  I just hadn't thought of it as passive aggressive.  He went on to explain that in New York, your friends will be direct and tell you like it is--they won't be gentle or say one thing to you and another to someone else.  

Hmmm...  Something to think about.  This one little piece of the puzzle helped me make a little more sense of Silver Linings Playbook.  The weird feeling in my stomach settled down a little.