Review of Joy (2015) by M. C — 07 May 2016

"Joy is your usual rags-to-riches story but Jennifer Lawrence is terrific as a woman who fought tremendous odds to make it to the top".

Movie Review: Joy.

Date Viewed: January 1 2016.

Directed By David O'Russell (The Fighter, Three Kings, American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook).

Screenplay By David O'Russell, Story By Annie Mumolo and David O'Russell.

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd,.

Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Rohm, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco, Melissa Rivers, Donna Mills, Susan Lucci and Drena De Niro.

David O'Russell's latest film doesn't hit a home run but it mostly works because of Jennifer Lawrence's performance. It maybe your usual rags-to-riches story but Lawrence is terrific as a woman who fought tremendous odds to make it to the top. The story of "Joy" is inspired by Joy Mangano who in the early 90's invented the Miracle Mop. This lead to her becoming a millionaire and starting her own successful business.

Before she became the woman she is now, Joy Mangano (Lawrence) was a divorced mother of two young children and she worked as a booking clerk for Eastern Airlines. Joy and her children live in under one roof with her mother Terri (Virginia Madsen) who mostly spends her time watching soap operas upstairs in her room, her grandmother (Diane Ladd) and her ex-husband, Tony Miranne (Edgar Ramirez). Joy dreams of becoming a successful businesswoman and while her grandma tells her to pursue her dreams, her mother tells Joy to give up on them.

Joy's father is played by another David O'Russell collaborator, Robert De Niro. Rudy Mangano just had a divorce from his third wife and he immediately starts dating a wealthy Italian widow who has some experience in business. After an incident involving a glass of red wine, Joy becomes inspired by the idea of a special mop that's better than ordinary mops. Joy calls her invention the Miracle Mop and she takes it in to the Home Shopping Network. Helping her with advertising the product is QVC executive Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), he becomes impressed with the product and shows Joy on how infomercials work. After pitching her product to the world, Joy and the Miracle Mop become an overnight success. However, with a successful product comes some setbacks, treachery and betrayal. Despite all of the problems she faced, Joy overcame her big obstacles and rose to the top.

This fact-based drama doesn't have as much nutrition like David O'Russell's previous three films (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle) which garnered 11 Oscar nominations and 3 wins in the acting categories. Robert De Niro is fine here but his character isn't written well enough for me to care about. Bradley Cooper once again shines as the top QVC executive who helps Joy in launching her product. I would've loved to explore more of Cooper's business and on how they sell products in infomercials but the movie doesn't travel there enough. Lawrence pretty much carries this movie all the way through because the screenplay by O'Russell and Annie Mumolo failed to put any layers in the story.

Nevertheless, "Joy" is still worth a look because of the performances by Lawrence and Cooper.