Silver Linings Playbook Beat Sheet
Opening Image – The scene opens in a psychiatric facility with a black screen and the voice a The main male character, played by Bradley Cooper, is alone in a room reading over what seems to be an apologetic letter to his wife, Nikki, begging to save their relationship.
Set-up – Go into his daily routine at the psych facility, taking meds, group discussions, and his obsessive workout
3 – Mother comes to discharge his from the facility, against the discretion of the doctors there.
4 – Pat says on the way home he’s trying to “remake himself, as a good thing”
5 – the drive home through scenes of Philadelphia, then shows Pat driving into the neighborhood and we hear his father and friend debate football and get the sense of extreme Philadelphia Eagles fan
6 – Pat enters his house to the huge surprise of his father, not in a happy way, he seemed confused.
Theme Stated (happens during the Set-up) –7 –seconds after Pat is home, his father was unaware his mother was taking him out of the facility, both parents debated in front him whether he was safe to be taken out, father is worried he isn’t read, mother says he’s fine, Pat chimes in convincing his father he’s totally fine and he was only in there because of a deal with the courts and he has served his time. Still his father seems uneasy about him beginning home.
8 – “I’m gunna find a silver lining” –Pat after his parents try to convince him that Nikki his wife is gone and has left him.
10 – Pat reads all the books Nikki is teaching to her students and becomes infuriated with the ending of a Hemmingway book, vents to his parents in the middle of the night
11 – his mother forces him to go to therapy, saying that’s part of the plan if he lives with them
12 – in the waiting room of therapy, he hears a song that clearly drives him crazy, seems to bring back bad memories.
13 – therapist says he used it as a test to see if it still bothered him. Pat also explains to therapist how he does not have a problem, its his father with an anger problem
Catalyst – 14 – Pat talks through the flashback when he walked in on his wife cheating on him, with the same song (his wedding song) playing in the background
15 – Pat and his therapist discuss how he is undiagnosed Bipolar, with mood swings with sever stress
17 – goes on a long jog, runs into prior co-worker at elementary school who clearly tries to avoid him or shoo him away, making it clear there was a prior incident that lost him his job, he tries to convince her he’s much better
19 – cop comes to the house; we learn he has a restraining order from Nikki on old house and school
24 – Pat goes to old friend’s house for dinner, his wife’s sister Tiffany comes over for dinner. Her husband passed away and she clearly has a dark mental issues
28 – Tiffany and Pat talk about their psych meds and then she insists on leaving and that he walks her home.
Debate –32 – Pat goes crazy in the middle of the night in search of his wedding video. He screams at his parents and breaks down, having flashbacks of when he caught his wife cheating and we see clips of him attacking the man. Cops come to the house because of noise complaints when he goes crazy against his parents.
Break Into Two (Choosing Act Two) 34 – Pat finally starts to take meds.
36 – Pat is on his daily running route when he runs into Tiffany who questions him about their conversation the night before. Then after they go back and forth with name calling, Pat calls her a slut which strikes a chord in her and she angrily but confidently says that she knows she has improved but there’s dirty sides of herself that she still likes and she questions Pat if he can say the same, which leaves him speechless as she runs away
40 – Pat has a discussion with his therapist of the past events and Pat is concerned about Tiffany coming on to him that its going to ruin his chances with Nikki. The therapist realizes the only way for Pat to truly be engaged is to focus on the conversation on Nikki and how to convince her to love Pat again. The therapist only uses that as a sort of trick to get Pat to pay more attention, care and love to Tiffany in order to show Nikki he is a loving and caring person.
B Story – 42 – Its Halloween night and Pat takes Tiffany to diner at their local diner. He orders Raisin Bran to ensure her its “not a date”
44 – Tiffany offers to get a letter to Nikki from Pat, and then she opens up to him and shares how she had sex with 11 people in her office and lost her job. She also accused her boss of harassment, which we later see is her defense mechanism against Pat.
46 – Pat tells tiffany about the song that makes him crazy and they discuss how they want to make a strategy to get in my control. Pat then gets upset when he thinks Veronica (Tiffany’s sister) told Nikki that he was with Tiffany at dinner.
48 – Tiffany gets pissed off when she realizes that Pat thinks she’s crazier than him and she cancels the deal and runs out of the diner. Pat chases after her and she starts yelling that he’s harassing her. He starts freaking out too and subconsciously hears the song.
51 – moments later when Tiffany realizes she almost got him into trouble she settles him down and they apologize to each other. They walk home together and she re-offers the letter delivery. We start to get a suspicious sense that
The Promise of the Premise – 55 – Pat goes to see Tiffany and the parents thinks he’s another creep, but then another man comes to the door and Pat talks him into leaving and says how Tiffany is a broken wing trying tog et fixed. Tiffany over hears him and is clearly falling for pat.
57 – Tiffany stands up for her self and says she wont give the letter unless he does something in return. She wants to make a deal for him to be her dance partner. She leaves him to think about making the deal.
65 – Pat meets up with Tiffany at her home dance studio and is only worried about when and how she’s getting the letter to her.
67 – Tiffany commands Pat to walk towards he like she’s Nikki, she tries to provoke emotion in him. She then tells him how Tommy died from getting hit by a car.
Midpoint – 68 – Tiffany and Pat sit on the floor listening to a song and staring into each others eye to provoke some sort of emotion.
69 – we see them working together on the dance and coming up with new ideas. They’re getting along well and Pat is happy because he knows he’s doing this favor which will ultimately get him in contact Nikki. All the while Tiffany is also falling for Pat and enjoying the time she has with him
Bad Guys Close In – 73-84- Pat’s Father guilt trips him into to wanting to spend more time with him when it seems like he’s just doing it because he thinks Pat is good luck. He convinces him to go to the Eagles game, which leads Pat to get in a fight and in trouble as well as miss his dance practice, which infuriates Tiffany. Pat’s father initially blames the Eagle’s loss on Pat, calling him a loser and a failure and then when tiffany enters the scene, someone his father highly dislikes and thinks is crazy, he starts blaming her for everything. She responds in a witty and confident manner stating all the time that the Eagles or Phillies won were times her and Pat were together, thus still blaming the fact that this loss was because Pat missed the dance practice. All of her facts lined up and this impressed Pats father so much he admitted he liked her then.
All is Lost –85- Pat’s father lost all of his money after the Giants game, which he initially blamed on Pat. So then he makes a new bet on the Cowboy’s all for double or nothing. He goes further to add a parlay to include the scores of Pat and Tiffany’s dance competition. At this point, Pat cannot handle that pressure and he freaks out and completely backs out of the dance competition, saying he will not do it.
Dark Night of the Soul – 95- After Pat backs out of doing the dance, his parents and Tiffany come up with a plan to lie to Pat to get him to come by telling him Nikki is coming. Meanwhile, pat is outside alone reading the letter from Nikki. He rereads it to come across the sentence that gives it away the letter was not written by Nikki but by Tiffany. This is a turning point in the movie when Pat realizes the potential in Tiffany and is slowly trying to erase the thought of Nikki from his life.
Break Into Three (Choosing Act Three) – 96- Pat goes on a long run either late at night or early in the morning, clearly deep in thought about what he has realized about the letter and his new feelings for Tiffany. He decides to go back to practicing the dance and with the time he’s spending with her his feelings grow and his interest for her grows.
98- Christmas time and tiffany and Pat get dressed and ready for their performance, when they walk into the place of the competition, they see all the other couples warming up, intimidating competitors look like professionals. Pat’s father also watches the competitors and becomes very concerned about the odds of his bet.
100- as Pat is signing in, Tiffany sees Nikki actually there, when she was just saying it as a trick the whole time. She becomes incredibly upset because she probably felt that she finally had Pat for herself.
104 – Pat’s father and friends celebrate the Eagles win! Half of his bet is sealed
Finale – 105 – Tiffany gets a little drunk before their performance because she’s so upset about Nikki actually being there. They are called to the floor for their performance.
105-108- their performance begins and they’re clearly not at the level of the other dancers but they still performance to their best and enjoy themselves. All the while, they are constantly locked eyes. The big move comes up and they do not execute it well and its very awkward.
108- the judges give their final score and it averages to a 5.0, the crowd sighs in disappointment but Pat, Tiffany and his family jump and cheer for join, to the confusion of the audience and competitors. His father won the bet!
110- pat approaches Nikki and they have a good healthy conversation and she says he looks good and happy and they embrace, meanwhile Tiffany watches from far away and she is very upset. She runs away crying.
113- pat chases after her and gives her a letter confessing his love for her and they passionately kiss!
Final Image – 115- The family is all together happy getting ready to watch an Eagles game and getting a long so well and we lastly see Tiffany sitting on Pats lap, kissing and smiling and madly in love!
THE END
This is a personal portrait by Ryan James Caruthers that I found on a flickr blog. The image immediately caught my eye for, not only the impressive Photoshop editing, but also the simplicity of the back and white theme to send a powerful message. The way the natural light reflects off the front of the male’s face shows his emotion, despite only seeing the profile of his face. A design element of dominance is used here to place emphasis on his main face while still drawing enough attention to the smaller image.
Visual literacy 