**Spoilers below**

In an early scene of Silver Linings Playbook, Pat (played by Bradley Cooper) throws Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms outside the window in frustration over the bleakness of the book’s ending (where the main character, Henry, after losing his wife and child, walks home in the rain). Pat, waking up his parents in the early morning hours to rant about the book, says:

I mean the whole time — let me just break it down for you — the whole time you’re rooting for this Hemingway guy to survive the war and to be with the woman that he loves, Catherine Barkley… and he does. He does. He survives the war, after getting blown up he survives it, and he escapes to Switzerland with Catherine. But now Catherine’s pregnant. Isn’t that wonderful? She’s pregnant. And they escape up into the mountains and they’re gonna be happy, and they’re gonna be drinking wine and they dance — they both like to dance with each other, there’s scenes of them dancing, which was boring, but I liked it, because they were happy. You think he ends it there? No! He writes another ending. She dies, Dad! I mean, the world’s hard enough as it is, guys. It’s fucking hard enough as it is. Can’t somebody say, “Hey, let’s be positive? Let’s have a good ending to the story?”

Retrospectively, this piece of dialogue not only foreshadows the later half of the movie, but also provides a certain aspect that, in my opinion, allows the movie to make any sense. By the end of the movie, [here’s the spoiler for those who care], all the tragic potential so carefully set up in the first half of the movie is completely nullified by a dance competition, which to quote Pat, I think it’s fair to say “was boring, but I liked it, because they were happy”. (Note also the number of times Pat says the word “dance”). Evidently, Silver Linings Playbook is an attempt at remedying this problem with Hemingway. By providing the grit in its first half and the happy ending in its second, it purports to be a Hemingway story with a happy ending.

This interpretation, I think, best explains the abrupt break in narrative, tone, character etc that occurs about halfway through the movie. All the problems that Pat and Tiffany (played by Jennifer Lawrence) have to deal with in the first half disappear; their mental health issues are no longer prevalent and they become two more or less normal people focused on winning a sport. The obsessive compulsive disorder of Pat’s father (played by Robert De Niro in what must be one of his best roles in the last decade) is no longer a problem once he bets all his savings on his son for a chance to own that restaurant he always dreamed of. And most obvious of all Pat’s psychiatrist transforms into a goofy ethnic buddy, whose narrative role denigrates to providing humour chiefly by saying things in a funny Indian accent.

Also reminiscent of A Farewell to Arms is the penultimate scene of the movie, which depicts Pat walking alone on a clear night to reconcile with his true love. Of course, there is no rain, no death, no depression, and seemingly all the problems have been solved. It’s almost as if director / writer David O. Russell is saying, Hemingway’s had his turn, and now it’s time to see how things end up with a happy ending.

I myself prefer Hemingway, but can respect what Russell is doing–as long as he tells us beforehand.