Joy

Joy

Plot in a nutshell: Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence) is a divorced mother of two who works for an airline. She lives a strange life with her divorced parents, grandmother, ex husband and two children all under one roof. This is the story of how she went from working as an airline ticket officer to the creator of the miracle mop and on to be a multi-millionaire entrepreneur helping those who are in the same mess she was in years before.

My thoughts: Any film with Jennifer Lawrence will always get my attention. I've been a big fan since I first saw her on the screen as Mystique in the rebooted X-Men: First Class and then there's the whole Hunger Games saga which I just can't get enough of. The role of Joy is one that Lawrence is familiar with - loving, caring, gives everything for others but eventually gets really hacked off with people taking advantage of them and learns to stand up for herself. Typecast? No. I just think she's good at it.

The first hour or so (I wasn't really paying attention to the duration) shows how Joy is literally the heart of her, albeit slightly broken, family.  Tony, the ex-husband and father of her two children (Édgar Ramírez) lives in the basement. Terri, Joy's mother (Virginia Madsen), lives in the front room. Mimi the grandmother (Diane Ladd) occupies in the upstairs bedroom. To make the family complete,  Joy's father Rudy (Robert De Niro) joins the dysfunctional Brady bunch after being kicked out by his latest partner and shares the basement with Tony. Naturally all goes to hell with the constant bickering and ridiculous idiosyncrasies of each character that simply drive one another insane.

But it's from within this broken family of headaches, screaming and downright bitchiness at times that Joy has her light bulb moment: the Miracle Mop. Now I may have lived a somewhat sheltered life, but if like me you hadn't heard of this idea before, you will be willing for a happy ending from the start. A self ringing mop that can have the head removed and put in the washing machine. Bloody genius.

As a single mother of 2 working a job she doesn't like to pay for so many people under her roof naturally Joy doesn't have the capital to get her idea off the ground so she goes to her father and his new partner to raise the capital. For me, this is where De Niro starts to shine. I quickly lost all feelings of warmth towards the character as essentially he tries to crush Joy's dreams before they even get going. For me, that's one of my favourite things. Not the dream smashing part, but when a character is portrayed in such a way you genuinely dislike them. Any film could have a bad guy or girl (it is 2016 after all), but to make them fundamentally annoying/irritating/disliked speaks volumes of the actor. Throughout the whole film De Niro's portrayal of Rudy is subtle yet remarkable. The guy knows what he's doing.

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, the mop is put into production but eventually flops. This is before Joy gets a meeting with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), an exec at QVC. This is the 4th time Lawrence and Cooper have worked together (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, Serena) and it's another positive collaboration. Now I'm not saying there's a huge love interest or that the film hinges on these two actors having some on/off screen chemistry, I just think they bounce off one another really well.

There are then the slightly predictable (sorry) ups and downs that come with trying to throw a new product into the market and we are entertained by Lawrence's strong performance showing how Joy would not take no for an answer and eventually fights and gets her moment in the spotlight. Literally.

Anyway blah blah the film goes on and we are shown all the issues of having a family run business, none more provoking than when the half-sister from hell (Peggy)  portrayed by Elisabeth Röhm goes behind Joy's back and essentially screws up the entire business model. Yet again, another fantastic performance even if slightly limited. I get the feeling Röhm's remit for the role was "be a bitch". She nailed it.

So Joy has been screwed over, declares bankruptcy but then goes after one of the people who has caused her this mess, finds him and gets a shed load of money back. For me, this jump was a bit much. There she is all broken and distraught over what has happened and then we flick to her getting her own back after flying to Texas (but has literally no money to get there so I didn't quite get that). We jump again then to the future where Joy has made millions after some more products and great career with QVC and they all lived happily ever after.

That was weak.

I was very much enjoying this film and it could have been left with the excellent voiceover work of Diane Ladd softly outlining the future, but to show it in the way they did I wasn't too keen on. Joy now appears to be a different person, which can happen with money, but completely different to the character we have learnt to love over the last two hours and it just doesn't quite fit. I found it hard to connect with her in the few minutes we had.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The writing and direction of David O.Russell (who also worked with Lawrence and Cooper with Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle) was spot on. It seems the group work well together and I can't see it being too long before their next piece.

Considering this is based on the true life story of Joy Mangano who I knew nothing about, I was very much entertained for the 2hrs and 4 minutes that flew by. Films of this length can be a stickler for becoming vague, uninteresting and damn right boring when they try to pad the story out but this one was just right. Just fix the ending.

Verdict: I didn't know this was based on a true story and in the past those kind of films have received mixed reviews from me. But I really enjoyed this and the time just flew by. It is one I would recommend and will definitely be getting on DVD when it's out. Well, maybe a while after it's been out. Blu-Ray is expensive...

Go and see it - 7/10