Joy

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.

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.

From the director of The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook & American Hustle, Joy advertises itself to be a biographical comedy-drama but isn't faithful enough to qualify as a biography, has nothing but disappointment in store if what you are looking for is a compelling drama & forgets midway that it's supposed to be a comedy as well.

Joy tells the story of its titular character, a divorced mother of three children who attempts to overcome the overwhelming obstacles in her personal & professional life by bringing her invention into the commercial market, which becomes an overnight success and marks the first step in her rise from a nobody to the founder & matriarch of a powerful business dynasty.

Written & directed by David O. Russell, the first act of Joy has no trouble at all in getting on your nerves for Russell goes horribly smug about his ability to create interesting characters and overburdens the plot with way too many irrelevant people, who never for once allow its titular character to breathe comfortably, plus their contribution amounts to pretty much nothing in the end.

Russell tries too hard in the beginning because of which the supporting cast he introduces us to turn end up being annoying much earlier than expected, thus leaving the responsibility of taking the story past the finish line on its leading lady. Editing also is an issue for the story meanders on moments that are tiresome, Cinematography adds nothing to the experience, and even the soundtrack isn't effective.

Coming to the performances, Joy features quite an ensemble in Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Bradley Cooper & others, amongst whom only Lawrence is able to deliver the goods. The supporting cast is anything but supportive, mostly due to the lack of characterisation in Russell's script, and while Lawrence tries to do whatever she can, she doesn't have enough material to work with.

On an overall scale, Joy could've been a highly fascinating biopic for there are tiny glimpses of a hidden gem in its content but instead, it turns out to be an absolute mess that manages to stay afloat only due to Lawrence's commitment. The first act is annoying, the middle part is its only saviour while the third act arrives too abruptly & ends everything a tad too quickly. Definitely the most underwhelming of all Russell-Lawrence collaborations, sitting through Joy was a joyless experience.

Blue-collar visionary Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) has an idea for a revolutionary new home-cleaning product. With the help of her failed lounge singer ex-husband Tony (Edgar Ramirez) and despite the machinations of her crazy family she pitches the product to a home shopping channel mogul (Bradley Cooper).

The film Joy is what you would get if ingested psychedelic mushrooms, wrote an infomercial about Miracle Mop and got an excellent cast of Hollywood stars to appear in it. Nothing is more absurd than the very idea of this movie getting made as a wide release feature with the exception of the inexplicable critical acclaim it has garnered.

Auteur David O.Russell (Who wrote, produced & directed) has been so successful in recent years with films like Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle that it has perhaps made him complacent and even bored. Sometimes when that happens an artist can go off on an experimental tangent. Equally as often the same artist can take on a challenge that they shouldn't. That is what Russell did here in trying to turn an idea that wouldn't normally have been considered for a movie of the week on the Lifetime network and making a feature film out of it.

I feel like seeing it again just to make sure the actors were really saying the goofy lines of dialogue I heard. Some of them appear to be gleaned from a motivational speaker's teleprompter. Others sound like what you hear in a dubbed version of an awful Mexican soap opera. I'm embarrassed for the distinguished cast that they had to try to make sense of this weirdness.

Tinged with Fellini-esque surrealism the bizarre rhythm of sequence suggests it was absolutely butchered during editing by somebody on speed, then Ritalin, then speed again. I often found it incoherent. It probably made perfect sense to drug users.

If the film accomplishes one thing it is that everyone who sees it is gonna wanna buy a Miracle Mop. I started scouting for one online right after I saw it.

This is a supposedly "inspirational" kind-of movie based on the life of Joy Mangano a business woman and inventor of home products.

As I'm reading this is far from the actual life of Mangano (who, unlike the Joy in the movie, she went to University and has a degree in business administration). It is more like a blend of the stories of other housewives turned to businesswomen (if you can believe that) and contains lots of fictional elements for dramatic purposes.

Nevertheless the plot is weak. So is the script. There isn't any actual moral here (like "Try and you will succeed"), and the narration of her grandmother dilutes any of that "moral" with too much "it is your destiny" crap.

Soooo, the movie is an empty shell (or should I say Sell, pun intended) but is it fun to watch? No. Not really.

The characters (including Robert De Niro's who plays her father, Elisabeth Röhm's who plays her half-sister, Virginia Madsen's who plays her mother and Isabella Rossellini's who plays her father's girlfriend and serves as the initial investor) are heavily unsympathetic.

The direction is blunt, the pace uneven (I wont spoil you but the resolution of all problems comes in just a few seconds near the end), the situations unbelievable (like going to the...bathroom and unveil a conspiracy by pure luck) etc.

Overall: A blunt movie with weak script and plot. The unsympathetic characters also make this unbearable. Not fun to watch and no true moral in this fictitious sequence of events.