Bipolar Romance in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK with guest Mason Davis

i mean people fight couples fight we would fight we wouldn't talk for a couple weeks that's normal that's my favorite it's okay we all assume whatever our problems are are like oh everybody has these problems like no you're your own special unique brand of welcome to cinema therapy today we have a special guest mason davis i'm alan searight i'm a filmmaker and i need therapy i'm jonathan decker i'm a licensed therapist and i love movies we got mason with us yes mason mason david mason's big time okay i'm an actor uh i work in film and i've written and produced a few things i would say the the films i get recognized and stopped the most for are wind river um the tv series yellowstone and i and i've done a lot of hallmark as well that's we live in utah and that's what we do here yeah you've got the look of a woman like not of a woman oh thank you you've got the look of a man in flannel in the mountains he's going to be a doctor a dentist a tooth doctor turkey club coming right up that a woman who's escaped her busy city life yeah would fall in were you in flannel no i'm kidding it was on tinder [Laughter] true story all right what film did you pick for us i picked silver linings playbook it's one of my favorite films of all time and um i think this is a really fitting story for what you guys do here which if you want to rent or buy we have a link in the description i feel like there's a lot that can be learned on the the human experience from this film as well as you know there's nothing better than a rom-com about people with mental illness right it's got psychological themes both of mental illness but also of grief and loss and dealing with i mean healing from infidelity going through what is clearly a divorce process and uh and all of us are asked to face our own trauma of dealing with chris tucker again bad combination on top of an anxiety disorder he was great in this though he was actually good in this though let's roll it the filmmaking is really interesting so much of this movie is right up in the characters faces a lot of movement as well a lot of movement as well it feels uncomfortably close is that song really playing we have music sometimes that song is killing me could you please turn it off i can't what do you mean you can't i don't have the controls i'm sorry dr timbers put you up to this is there a speaker here is it speaker here i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry okay i'm sorry i'll fix all this okay just right there that's the brilliance of his performance so good so really fast like speaking as somebody who works with people struggling with bipolar anxiety depression it's a very accurate performance not saying one size fits all and everybody with bipolar acts this way the attempt to control like in the attempt can you please turn it off he's trying to be polite but he's clearly agitated right and you would think if someone said to you can you please turn it off that feels aggressive right and that feels like someone who's threatening you or bullying you or intimidating you because of the tone but in his mind he's clearly like this is me being as respectful and kind as i can right now yeah i'm not ripping your head off and smashing everything yeah right i'm doing i'm the good guy here right manic often looks like happy and confident and he does sometimes when he's like what are you doing i'm getting in shape i'm getting trim getting really fit for nikki i'm gonna read nikki's teaching syllabus and get my old job back he's so confident that he like tunes out reality but he's also got this mania where he's just extremely uncomfortable and when he starts looking for the speaker i love in the performance how you could see like the immediate shame yeah yeah exactly the immediate embarrassment and shame of what he's done that was a messed up thing you did dr patel all right that's a mess-up thing i'm sorry but that's you can call me cliff yeah well cliff that's not the way you're supposed to meet people okay you should write that down in your i don't know what you have a little book you write stuff down in i'm sorry about that song i just wanted to see if it was still a trigger for you bravo it's a trigger i'm not going to take any meds i should just tell you that right well you'll have to do that it's not gonna take any meds no look it makes me foggy no you will have to take medication i don't want to need meds doctor i'm sorry look i am not the explosion guy okay as as somebody with uh my father is the explosion guy you know pretty strong 80d i've been medicated before and him so talking about like all the discussions that he has and then when he has i have one separate scene with jessica lawrence's character you know flattening you out and doing all these things these are these are the conversations that you have yeah what meds are you on me none i used to be on lithium and seroquel and abilify but i don't take them anymore no they make me foggy and it's having those conversations where you're trying to figure out okay what is the correct level of medication can i self-medicate can i fix this with other things to just balance out my brain chemistry like all of that stuff is just so uncomfortably relatable they also make me bloated yeah i was on xanax and effects are but i agree it wasn't as sharp so i stopped you ever take klonopin klonopin yeah right jesus what yeah what day is it oh yeah 100 and i'm sure you have a lot of experiences like this but i am um i i i take medication um i i for depression and anxiety and um and alcohol addiction and uh and so i very i'm very i connect to this piece because i understand what it's like to to have a medication that numbs you and you feel like you're not who you are yeah how about tracerdome trayzidone oh it flattens you out i mean you are done it takes the light right out of your eyes and then i'm i'm used to taking medication to the point where you feel good so you stop taking it because you think you're better i'm good now yeah everything and that is like the number one flaw you can do there's a reason you feel better is because you're on the medication and um and you're not better if you just you know you can't diagnose yourself you have to you need the professional help yeah they're there to help you and i know as a therapist like therapist reacts to movie therapists that was a real that was a punk move i would never do that that's right i'm weird i wondered about it yeah i would never do that especially not in the waiting room like if anything i would do it i would i might do it in my office with like your heads up and i'm like i want you to tell me this is what i want to do and i want you to tell me what comes up for you in like the controlled spaces if you don't play it in the waiting room and let him like freak out like that another thing about this usually when the guy is dangerous right yeah right and there are people there there's a stereotype about therapists that i see in a lot of movies that that applies here and there are therapists who are like this but they're very detached and they're reflective right i don't show you who i am in therapy i just kind of reflect back who you are and that's a very freudian technique and it's evolved and there are other more modern thinkers who do it that way but i subscribe to it's the relationship that heals and so when they meet later on outside the football stadium and he sees his therapist in the complete that seems like way better therapy yeah and he's like i'm not your therapist today today i'm your brother in green not your therapist i'm so happy to see you wonderful wonderful that you're here from my experiences in therapy now i'm coming off like i'm i'm as crazy as allen does it every episode uh okay cool i'm the one who needs therapy first and you're an actor we already knew yeah that's true that's true we were all crazy that's why i didn't marry an actress um i almost did a spit take on that i tried to get you i waited for the i waited for you but i've had therapists like this and that coal calculated did zero help for me yeah i had zero healing from it and in fact it created this almost paranoia this level of distrust with them are they judging me that yeah it's like that they're not here for my best interest they're here for you know clocking the hours taking the paycheck kind of thing right part of for me successful therapy is you seek to establish the bond before you seek to give any sort of treatment one thing that pat does here though is he isolates his anger as one incident i'm not the outburst guy that's my dad right right and that's and that is a uh obstacle to accountability in therapy and in life is to i mean we we do we are more than our worst moments but our worst moments are part of us and we need to own them i was a big flood but i'm not anymore there's always going to be a part of me that's sloppy and dirty but i like that with all the other parts of myself can you say the same about yourself can you forgive are you any good at that he's owning them like on the surface like i know i have to say this was wrong and i shouldn't have done it but to actually admit that he has any sort of problem he is so insistent that he's on track and he's doing great and right now he's not i come home from work after i i left early which i never do by the way but i got a fight with nancy the school high school principal i come home and what's playing but the song from my wedding the song that you so charmingly played out here today for us that's playing and i don't think anything of it which is odd cause i should've i come home what do i see another interesting filmmaking note so much of this movie has no score at all most of the score is diegetic so it's like playing from a source in the scene and then i look down but so much of the movie just doesn't have a score which as a viewer is very uncomfortable because we've been trained to hear score and okay this is telling me what to feel and this doesn't tell you what to feel you just kind of experience the film it makes you uncomfortable and you know what he says to me you should probably go that's what he says to me so yeah i snapped i almost beat him to death but then i get chastised for it i bet i'm parallel to my father i don't think so all right can you talk about something that you did before or after yeah about a week before the incident i called the cops and i told them that my wife and the history guy were plotting against me by embezzling money from the local high school which wasn't true it was a delusion nice ownership there the hospital that's because i'm uh undiagnosed bipolar yeah with mood swings and weird thinking brought on by severe stress which rarely happens thank god there's a fascinating so first of all the therapist does something that i would totally do in therapy which is hear something absolutely shocking and just go hmm all right because while i do engage as me in therapy there are times where for the sake of the client so they don't feel judged oh yeah i have a poker face i'm like okay all right whereas inside i'm like oh boy oh boy and one thing no therapist will ever tell you that i will tell you is sometimes therapists are going i don't know how the hell i'm going to deal with this yeah like what they want me to help them like what am i and then you're like and you do the same thing as anybody else you're like breathe trust the process you'll figure it out together trust your training you know and then you get there but there are moments where you're just like holy sh but there's a there's an interesting balance of pat here of he's he's taking a step into accountability sure where he's like i'm ready to take my side of the street clean i'm taking ownership of my side of the street but she needs to take ownership rehearse and it's it's like just take a step into it and then go hard left and you have to in in life you have to really do the work of no matter what anybody else does i'm responsible for me period yeah sorry i'm just getting my little therapy geek card now yeah man i picked this for you i'm p i'm geeking out into psychology because they got a lot of it right yeah and then the shower incident happened and that that's when everything stopped so i then realized that uh oh wow you know i've been dealing with this my whole life and uh and without any supervision i've been doing it all on my own uh with no i love that shot you're just coming down to the hands basically i've been loving the wedding ring that had to be hard yeah it's a lot to deal with especially when you don't know what the hell is happening see that's which i do know that's a moment that i completely can identify with because with my with my stuff my my anxiety and depression was it was something i'd been dealing with over a very long time and i didn't know what it was undiagnosed and you you kept thinking what's wrong with me yeah right and to the point where i started having episodes in public and things started happening and and other other people's lives were even getting in danger because i'd be driving and something would happen and i would just be like okay what can i do to get myself out of this situation and usually it was a very dangerous thought that came to my mind and and and it is it's like the honesty and his performance of i it's very scary when you don't know what's happening is is the hardest part of it all once you are at this stage you're actually in this the the steps to healing and right and and that's why he's a very good first this is a very good character to start your first act with because now we're gonna go see how he heals and and go through this journey with him but had we started this movie before anything was diagnosed the movie would have been more diagnosing the situation versus healing the situation and that's when you pass the threshold back into quote-unquote sanity people like i feel like i'm going crazy and i'm like but you recognize your symptoms yeah like if you were crazy people don't feel like they're going crazy right people are just like this is all everything's awful and terrible and this is real yeah right like if i don't like to use the word crazy because it's pejorative but if if you want to talk about like a lapse insanity or detachment from reality it was in his delusion when he thought they were plotting yeah but now when he's like that wasn't true that was the illusion brother like when you're there you're not insane you know you because you recognize what's going on it's like in a beautiful mind when he finally recognizes these people around him aren't real and they never have been at that point he's sane even though he still hasn't even still has the delusion yeah she never gets old marcy can't be real she never gets old he recognizes that it's well even at the beginning of this scene when he asks is that is that song really playing yeah that's because we we find out that he hears the song when he's having episodes yeah and and so he he is probably honestly asking is this really playing or is this something that's going on inside me yeah i did pick up on that no that's great i thought he's like are you seriously playing this around is that song really playing right now but he's actually asking is that song really playing he's he's asking what am i having a delusion right now yeah hey hey come on look i don't think you're crazy all right yes you do no i told your therapist that you are in a superior mental illness category hey calm down leave me alone how identifiable is that arguing about who's crazier yeah i didn't want mickey to think that i was associated with that kind of had that happened in therapy before done anything like that okay you may not have experienced the [ __ ] that i did but you loved hearing about it didn't you you are afraid to be alive you're afraid to live you're a hypocrite you're conformist you're a liar i opened up to you and you've judged me you're an ass you are in heaven get off me get off you're harassing me [Music] hey stop stop all right [Music] and as soon as he starts hearing it you can see in his face that he's recognizing like okay maybe i need to slow this one up so she dealt with her husband's death through compulsive sexuality and that's what she was talking about yes come on solo time what do these kids do to you hey i'm begging to go back to baltimore you know that right what's the matter with you baltimore's worth of mental hospital in a little context her ex-husband who her late husband who passed away was a police officer he didn't do anything and worked with this guy let me come here what are you gonna do about that song huh you're gonna go your whole life scared of that song it's a song don't make it a monster come on breathe there's no song there's no song there's no song playing so jennifer lawrence's character in this movie is such an enigma to me because you know she's sort of an undiagnosed you know we don't know exactly what her diagnosis is and she's so hot and cold like one second she'll be you know acting out like she was and then she'll come in and do this it's a brilliant performance it's all super believable i'm not i'm afraid i know i have a stupid sense of humor that's not a good thing to do well i'm [ __ ] up what can i tell you yes i'm tommy's crazy horror widow mine is a horror thing for the most part you're a funny girl you want to get a drink sometime she doesn't do that anymore so speaking you know what it what would be her diagnosis i don't know she's aware of social more she just doesn't care yeah right like she understands what isn't appropriate and she really doesn't give a damn it's it's not asperger's it's like sort of a mild sociopathy well and i i may not give her a full borderline personality diagnosis the the shades of that that are definitely there is she wants closeness but she's scared of it and so she i mean this this compulsive sexual behavior of sleeping with a lot of people which she's now backing away from and the cop is like all sleazy about you want to get a drink sometimes yeah i don't love bradley who's like she doesn't do that anymore also that's fun about this and i don't know you might be able to have a take on this with therapy is how you have these two people with both who have issues that need treatment and are maybe in their stages of treatment how they are the ones who kind of help each other yeah you have dr cliff who is a great you know uh he ends up being a pretty good therapist his first session not super strong he ends up being pretty good but she identifies that he's going through that the song's playing she comes to calm him down out of it even after her her big episode and blow up and then and then him to be like hey like multiple times in this film he defends her to other people like even with the copies like she doesn't do that anymore or he he gets the guy off her front porch they're like hey get out of here she's not like that anymore so i look at these characters and you talk about them helping each other it is very true that people with um who are struggling with mental illness often find each other and cling to each other like a life raft whether or not this couple is going to make it is going to depend in my view on on really two things one are there struggles chronic right we know his is yeah he's had his whole life his struggles are not because his wife cheated on him they're not circumstantial they were exacerbated by that but he's always had it uh whether or not she acts the way she does to cope with her husband's death or whether she's an ongoing or whether yeah she's um they're they're if if they're both chronically mentally ill that doesn't mean they can't be happy together what it does mean is that they can't heal each other you have poor social skills you have a problem i have a problem you say more inappropriate things than appropriate things right they won't have that power and and to suggest that they might is hollywood you scare people i tell the truth you're mean well i'm not telling the truth um they they can have a huge role in healing each other and supporting each other and empathizing with each other but they're both going to need professional help right qualified professional help does love ever play a factor in in healing yeah things like this yeah absolutely that well and you know you talk about the word love it's not just the romance it's and it's not even just the companionship it's it's compassion it's the the aspect of their love that i think is very healing is he's not judgmental of her right he he is briefly he talks about her in therapy session and it's really him dealing with his feelings for her that he calls her like a [ __ ] or a [ __ ] or whatever yeah but as the relationship actually progresses he's not judgmental of her at all which is which is very healing uh but love absolutely plays a role in in healing or in in a lot of cases there's mental illness that you don't heal from it doesn't go away you you figure out how to be functional you figure out growth than anything yeah and you figure out how to have a life yeah and having people who care about you having that support and having people who understand what you're going through whether by experience or because they've cared to educate themselves is enormous well that's you know speaking from experience my the therapy that i've had for you know my comparatively very minor uh mental illness stuff that i've dealt with i've gotten a huge huge amount of support from my wife and even you know i have young kids my oldest is 10 and my youngest is 5. and you know obviously we haven't explained to them like the full gamut of everything that i've been going through but we've you know talked to them about daddy's having problems with these things and you know just having a little kid say hey i understand that and i still love you yeah is it's huge yeah thank you how are you in love tell me about that the big nikki love tell me about it i want to understand it we have a very unconventional chemistry it makes people feel awkward but not me all right she's the most beautiful woman i've ever been with wow it's electric between us okay yeah we want to change each other but that's normal couples want to do that i want her to stop dressing like she dresses i want her to stop acting so superior to me okay and she wanted me to lose weight and stop my mood swings which both i've done i mean people fight couples fight we would fight we wouldn't talk for a couple weeks that's normal she wanted me to be passionate and compassionate and that's a good thing you know i just look i'm my best self today and i think she's her best self today and her love's gonna be amazing anyway that's all i just wanted to throw that in because it's maybe the funniest scene in the entire film i i think we all do that that's not even like a mental health thing i think we all try to minimize it's okay whatever our problems are are like oh everybody has these problems like no you're your own special unique brand of [Laughter] he's in such denial because and that's the whole title of the film this i mean silver linings playbook is this idea that there's a silver lining on everything and and it's a beautiful idea and and to be and frankly i think it's one we should strive for is like how can i turn my lemons into lemonade how can i take whatever situation i'm handed and do the best with it that's actually a healthy mentality and so there's definitely something to be said for silver lines but what you don't want to do is be in denial right and pretend things are rosy when they're not because then you're setting yourself up for the rug is going to be pulled out from under you and then you won't be able to find the silver lining because it's this whole house of cards has come crumbling down right and he thankfully has this he's got the ability to prepare for this dance competition and fall in love with jennifer lawrence which is always you know a great backup plan it's a great trip it's a great transitioning yeah if you've got to have a relationship and you might as well get into one with jennifer lawrence right i mean yeah i guess but but he but he ultimately does realize like what the reality of a situation was and how messed up his marriage was and he does something here that a lot of people in abusive or unhealthy relationships do is that he demonizes himself and he makes the other person like he makes them a saint now he doesn't fully do this because he's like she needs to take ownership of her side of the street but he believes at his core my wife is a good person and if she cheated on me it's because i had all these flaws right and and if i can fix me then we'll be good right and it's only when he embraces the truth of it that he can make a real silver lining which is i can actually create a life based in truth that is if not exactly what i want which in his case it is because j-law right but but we have to live in truth i think he's constantly trying to take responsibility but never fully is yeah and then he has he's paying lip service it's performing exactly yeah it's yeah it's what he thinks it's supposed to look like instead of actually internally taking responsibility but at the very end at the moment where like they get together and he has his you know kind of this beautiful letter he writes her and he he tells her he's like the only way you can meet my crazy was by doing something crazy yourself thank you i love you i knew it the minute i met you i'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up i just got stuck pat sorry it took me so long to catch up because he was finally coming to terms with his reality and not not banking on this idea that it's like you know i'm just figuring it out as i go or anything like that it's finally like okay this is what's actually here and present and real not this idea of this uh this x and this idea of who i'm gonna be and who she's gonna be and all this stuff here's what's actually present and and real and i finally caught up to that that person and now we can really start to heal each other and and form this relationship and you know well and like you were saying jono you know build a relationship based on reality and truth not based on the sort of manufactured because it's you know this is his ex-wife who you know he spent a lot of time with but he's constructed a version of her that is not real yeah right for in his head and that's he wants to have that magical relationship with that magical person and you can't have that yeah when i met my wife i was pining for somebody else like like the the person before and it took me months to actually see what was right in front of me we didn't meet on tinder it was farmers only i'm not even a farmer i was just curious no that's not true are you farm curious are you farm curious i identify as a farmer we'll do it that way okay okay i've got a flannel you can borrow yes full circle there it is thank you for joining us for this episode of cinema therapy mason davis has brought us a wonderful discussion about silver linings playbook talk about our socials alan we have some social medias it is at therapy underscore cinema on twitter and instagram you can find us on facebook is there anywhere that people can find you or do you not do you want to hide oh no i mean you can follow me i don't i don't go to social media too often but uh it's at mason d davis uh on instagram and twitter d stands for danger it's my middle name danger davis oh my gosh so until next time is that song seriously playing stop harassing me he doesn't do that anymore and watch movies [Laughter] that was good that was good oh wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute oh man oh i got an idea

Channel: Cinema Therapy

Views: 528,219

Keywords: cinematherapy, cinema therapy, mental health, counseling, therapy, mental health therapy, Jonathan Decker, Alan Seawright, Mason Davis, Silver Linings Playbook, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, mental illness, bipolar, grief, divorce, bipolar disorder

Id: aJlgwz00D-U

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021