Joy: O Nome do Sucesso

I confess an approach with a negative a priori. Having not really enjoyed Happiness Therapy (David O. Russell, 2012), I feared a film gathering the same director with the same main actors. And I was definitely wrong! First, Jennifer Lawrence plays admirably, and is excellently assisted by Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen and Isabella Rossellini. This film is also a fabulous and inspirational advocacy to an escape attempt from a disadvantaged environment filled with zombies (the mother Terry in particular, and the father Rudy to a lesser extent) thanks to an obstinacy skilfully measured out and the wise help of her former husband Tony. This movie is invigorating!

I should not have been surprised. Jennifer Lawrence is an AMAZING actor, one of the finest we have today. The story is not flashy, but the acting is superb. If you can enjoy movies without a lot of CGI and things blowing up, give this a try.

Joy is a fine half a film. The performances all-around are strong, the story is uncommon enough to grab your attention, and keep you invested, and the direction is solid. With all that in mind, Joy still feels like a shallow version of what could have been. There is a reason why all the movie's Oscar buzz has all but dissipated in every category except a courtesy nod to Jennifer Lawrence as Best Actress; Why? You should read on.

Lawrence plays the titular character, a mother of two with a very complicated home life. Though divorced, her ex-husband (Ramirez) lives in the basement waiting for his singing career to take off. Though she has decidedly negative relationships with her parents, her shut-in mother (Madsen) lives with her and her father (De Niro) is a serial divorcée with a struggling auto repair shop. It's also the 1980's and she works the night shift for an Airline that's dramatically cutting back hours; yikes. The only thing she has going for her is she likes to tinker and has the work ethic to see a good idea through. So when she has a eureka moment after a failed excursion on her father's new girlfriend's boat, she quickly invents a household object that may just be her ticket out of systemic poverty.

I don't think I'm giving much away by saying the movie asks its audience to hinge their emotional cache on a mop. The self-wringing Miracle Mop to be exact, invented by honest-to-God real person Joy Mangano. Leave it to director David O. Russell to find a decent story in the life of a QVC luminary and keep it just this side of rational. The prologue of the film lovingly dedicates the movie to "daring women," which Joy certainly is but Russell wisely omits the last name to give the audience a universality. This too can be your story of success if you have grit and a good idea. It's a great theme sadly worth a much better movie.

Part of the problem is the pace. There are long stretches of improvisations that carry absolutely no emotional weight. Unlike American Hustle (2013) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012) where the rushed, overlapping dialogue and melodramatic mugging serves to highlight the immediacy of, say dealing with the mob, here there's nothing holding us to the characters and their goals...except Joy. Russell seems to be aware of his own style and juxtaposes the lives on screen with an 80's era soap opera which consumes the life of Joy's mother. The parallel is interesting in theory but the results deflate the proceedings.

Not usually the voice of hope, I really wanted to like this movie. A movie about the positives of hard work and entrepreneurship has not hit theaters since Pursuit of Happyiness (2006). Yet out of all modern directors working today, David O. Russell feels like a quixotic mouthpiece for such a hopeful theme. His movies always have an unabashed pessimism about human nature that undermines his characters with an almost Bunuelian sense of treachery. Even as far back as his Three Kings (1999) days there was a mercurial, bittersweet undercurrent to his work. Joy bares disappointment after disappointment to a breaking point most protagonists of this genre would buckle under. Then, as if to put a band-aid on an open gash, the movie ends with an epilogue that's pat to the point of flimflam.

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Some people have really gotten riled up about this film. I love to watch Jennifer Lawrence, so I give it the benefit of the doubt from the beginning. This, of course, is the story of a smart woman who has done only things for the family, only to be used and abused by them. She has finally had enough and decides to move on an idea for a new kind of mop that will revolutionize housecleaning. The problem is getting connected with someone who will notice what she has done. She goes through all kinds of trials and pain and finally hits it big on QVC. However, there are people out there who know how to manipulate things to make life miserable for a neophyte. The problem with this movie is that nearly everyone is a jerk, only in things for themselves. Also, there is a kind of "deus ex machina" ending that makes things all hunky dory. I still haven't figured quite how she lands on her feet at the end and what the threat was. Still, it moves along pretty well and keeps one's interest. I did feel, however, that she should have shed the whole bunch of people who tried to stop her along the way.

I was not drawn to Joy when it was first released because it just looked like a made for TV movie. I was surprised when Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance and still had no real desire to see Joy. Joy popped up on my new releases list on Apple TV today so I thought I would just watch the first 10 minutes to get an idea whether it would be watching or not. After 10 minutes I knew this was worth watching so my husband and I watched it and to both of our surprise we really liked it. Jennifer Lawrence was outstanding in her role as Joy. I've always thought Lawrence was an amazing actress since I saw her in Winter's Bone. She is the real deal. She is destined for more success with each film she is in. DeNiro is amazing as always. It is a wonderful story that should have received better reviews. I can understand why it wasn't a box office hit but it is definitely worth watching.