Twentieth Century Fox
Like most people, I think Jennifer Lawrence is a very good actress. But let’s be honest here, not everything she does is charming and not every movie she makes is great. Usually, though, at the very least she’s great in them.
Joy comes from director David O Russell, who collaborated with star Jennifer Lawrence twice already to better effect. This movie is loosely (very loosely) based on the life of real life inventor Joy Mangano, played here of course by Jennifer Lawrence. The movie starts with a narration from Joy’s grandmother (Diane Ladd) setting up a few things. Joy has always been imaginative, but her sister has always been terrible and her parents useless, so she’s always been minimized. It becomes a theme, that everyone other than Joy is just a caricature.
That narration by the way is actually a problem with the movie, but without spoiling anything, let’s just say it’s used very poorly and placed weirdly in the movie. We catch up with Joy later in life living in a house with way too many people: Her daughter and ex-husband Tony (Edgar Ramirez), who’s kind of a slightly talented singer with dreams of fame, her bedridden (by choice) mother Mimi (Virginia Madsen) who watches soap operas all day, her grandmother, and finally, her father Rudy (Robert De Niro) who was kicked out by his most recent girlfriend and needs a place to crash.
De Niro’s character here is interesting because he’s such a tool, but in a passive aggressive way. It’s actually a good performance, but the character is written to be very frustrating. It’s like Joy is only believed in by her grandmother and to a lesser extent, herself. Joy is frazzled with the effort of being the only responsible one around, doing chores, repairing pipes, and still working at the airport. I suppose she does get some support from her best friend Jackie (Dascha Polanco), but it is also an underwritten role.
The movie jumps back and forth in time, using flashbacks that sometimes work, and sometimes do not at all. What I mean is that what they reveal doesn’t really need the device of a flashback, so why not just go chronologically? Anyway, the turn in the movie comes when Joy gets an idea for a new product, a new easier to use and clean mop. She must deal with all the problems that come with it, including raising money — she needs help from her father’s new irritating but rich girlfriend (Isabella Rosselini). Production issues, sometimes screwed up by her family trying to “help” are another problem, but finally Joy gets a big chance.
She manages to get in front of the new executive producer at QVC, Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), to pitch her idea. Bradley Cooper is great, adding a new jolt of energy really needed in the movie and he still works great with Jennifer Lawrence. With his help, Joy gets a chance to make her pitch on live TV — but can she pull it off? Well, what do you think?
As I said, Jennifer Lawrence is great here, and the other acting is also good, but the problem is the characters. Joy is an interesting person and character, but it seems like nearly everyone else is out to get her or just doesn’t matter. After I walked out of the theater, I had very mixed feelings on the movie. Did I like it? In general, I did like it, but a lot of that was the shiny David O Russell gleam and the megawattage of Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.
I think that as I begin to forget the worse scenes and remember only the great ones, Joy will feature better in my mind, but I know that I’ll always have the nagging feeling that it wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. Joy is great in Joy, but the movie itself? Not quite so much.
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