Joy

Joy is an untidy, yet entertaining little mess of a film.  It never quite has a handle on what it wants to be.  Is it a bio-picture?  Is it a comedy?  A drama?  A film about a woman rising above the odds and making a name for herself?  The movie is all of that, yet never settles on a consistent tone, because it never seems sure of itself.  And yet, we have another fine performance from Jennifer Lawrence (rebounding nicely from her lifeless performance in the last Hunger Games movie), and the movie is often quite often lovely to look at.

Co-writer and director David O. Russell (American Hustle) obviously intends his movie to be an exploration of the American Dream.  And while it's not as sharp of an examination on the subject as Russell could have given us, it's still smart enough and held my attention.  Lawrence fills the shoes of Joy Mangano, the real life woman who went from housewife to multi-millionaire after she designed the Miracle Mop.  Conventional wisdom would lead you to believe that this is a rags to riches story.  And while it does have that element, the movie is not your conventional narrative.  It uses Joy as a representation of strong women in general, and women who usually are not saluted very often in the movies.  I admire that, and seeing what Joy had to go through just to get her invention noticed and even what she had to go through after becoming a success, it's easy to admire her.

Joy starts the movie off as a woman who feels like life has passed her by already.  She lives in a crowded house, which currently holds her feuding and divorced parents (Robert De Niro and Virginia Madsen, both wonderful here), her ex-husband (a likable Edgar Ramirez) who doesn't have a real job and lives in her basement, her two young children, and her sweet natured grandma Mimi (Diane Ladd), who told Joy when she was just a child that she can be and do anything that she dreams of, and still believes that she can.  She has a dead end job at an airline, and is constantly flailing about in life, trying to keep everyone around her happy.  Even if it's hidden, we can see some real steely determination in Joy's demeanor, and a lot of that comes from Lawrence's wonderful performance.  But it isn't until she accidentally cuts her hand while trying to pick up some pieces of broken glass with a conventional mop that she stumbles upon the idea that will change her life.

Using her daughter's crayons, she designs the early plans for a mop that you only have to wring one time, and that is designed of a lightweight plastic, as well as a cotton base that can be cleaned in a washing machine.  She hits up her father's current girlfriend (Isabella Rossellini) for seed money, and we then get a behind the scenes look at the efforts Joy went through in order to get her invention noticed, including performing unsolicited demonstrations in the parking lot outside of a local K-Mart.  It isn't until she meets Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), the bright-eyed executive of the fledgling QVC home shopping network that someone finally takes her and her invention seriously.  Not only does he admire her Wonder Mop idea, but he eventually sees the potential in her selling the product on TV herself.  He admires that she is real, and eventually thinks customers will relate to that.  In fact, at one point he predicts that "one day television will be about and made by regular people".

In fact, the best moments in Joy are the scenes when Neil is showing her around the QVC studio, and we see how the programs were made back then.  The rest of the film, dealing with Joy's family struggles as well as her issues with getting people in the business world seriously are good, but also a lot more routine.  We've seen it all before, but at least it's being down well, and being performed by a strong cast.  Lawrence makes us care about Joy.  She's a strong figure who refuses to give up, no matter what she endures from the people around her.  I found myself greatly admiring her as the film went on.  Even if the movie doesn't always work and certain sections drag a little, it is the character of Joy and Lawrence's performance that held my interest.  Cooper is excellent also as Neil Walker, and the movie probably could have used much more of his on screen energy.

Will Joy be a tough sell for the holiday viewing crowd?  Possibly.  The ad campaign has been kind of vague about just what the film is supposed to be about.  But, despite its faults, this does end up being an oddly fascinating little film about a positive female figure in the world of business.  You can easily see the story of Joy Mangano making a very strong little feel good movie.  David O. Russell has made something a bit more quirky than that, but it's nonetheless entertaining.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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