Review of Joy (2015) by Odjento — 17 Jan 2016

I wasn’t too interested by the trailer of Joy but after watching a small featurette of it on TV I became interested in it due to the directors emphasis on “making interesting and strong characters”.

The film sadly did not deliver just that.

The film is made up to be told from the Grandma’s point of view, yet her character is hardly developed, and neither is anyone else’s really that much other than Jennifer Lawrence’s. Lawrence does bring an excellent performance here and deserves her Oscar nod but it doesn’t save the film.

The writing only allows Lawrence’s character to get any real development or relatability to them, but the writing is also exceedingly flawed. It has Lawrence’s character ping pong between strong female to sobbing and scared mess without any real explanation between her two personas.

The characters you’re meant to love are only really Lawrence’s character and her Ex-husband really due to the way they’re written, her dad is a funny addition (brought by a performance by Robert De Niro) but isn’t really fully explained as a character and usually pushed to the side, and the character that you are meant to hate are written in such a one-dimensional way that they are only written in a hateful, non-complex way.

The film does still provide some interesting shots and scenes (I specifically enjoyed Bradley Coopers explanation of the Teleshopping market) but it still suffers from convoluted writing and a rather disappointing ending; so much is said to have happened but we more get it as a recap, along with Lawrence’s character then seeming like the typical “I’ve been there so I’m super nice I can help you” character.

The film is enjoyable and shows Lawrence’s acting capabilities but still doesn’t come away unscathed of criticism.