The Underdog City

Zach Baron reviews Silver Linings Playbook through the movie's setting and sports focus:

 The ways in which Pat, in his pitiable mix of out-of-control rage and deranged optimism, is a product of his struggling underdog city and the maddening football franchise that it hosts will probably be obvious to most readers of this site and lost on a solid percentage of non-sports fans who go see the movie. You have to know Philly, know the Eagles to really get it, how each of these characters is simultaneously badly scarred and up for more punishment. Silver Linings Playbook is a few different movies at once, but one of those movies is about the complicated interplay between a city's sports teams and a city's citizens, the way that over time the two start resembling one another.

The film is set in 2008, and in one scene, De Niro's Pat Sr., devastated in the aftermath of a loss to the Giants and despairing of his erratic son, begins yelling at Cooper's character, telling him he's dropping the ball on his life like DeSean Jackson dropped the ball at the 1-yard line — the end zone loomed wide open for both, and neither could find a way in. The comparison tells you everything you need to know about this family and the younger Pat's failure to be a good member of it. It also tells you a lot about certain kinds of fathers and sons, how they talk to each other, the way in which invoking Jackson is a safe way of invoking something that's dark and otherwise hard to say out loud. If there's been a better representation of the complicated but very real overlap between the football field and the city full of people that surrounds it, I haven't seen it.

There is something unique about Philly.  When I was there on an east coast baseball trip, I got this kid brother vibe from people, like they grew up in the shadow of New York, and just couldn't shake it.  The sports mania is intense, and they seem to just expect to be let down.  It is fascinating.