Whatever your opinion is about director David O. Russell, you can’t deny that in recent years he has worked with an impressive number of actors and actresses and has made some interesting films like Silver Linings Playbook, Three Kings, American Hustle and The Fighter. In Joy he works together with several people from of his previous films including Jennifer Lawrence, Robert de Niro and Bradley Cooper.
As a Joy (Lawrence) was always able to invent new things. She designed a special dog collar which although well conceived yielded her no money because her soap-opera addicted mother felt no need to patent the idea. The urge for Joy to invent has disappeared over the years and she now works as a desk clerk at an airline. It is hard to make ends meet with both her children, her mother, grandmother and ex-husband which all live in her house. When her father also appears at the house the situation gets even more complicated. Until she gets an idea at one point, a mop that you can wring the dirty water from without touching it. She decides to seek funding for her idea and is trying to sell her “Miracle Mop”.
At the beginning of the movie Russell chooses to tell the story in an unconventional way. Several times the characters end up in a soap in Joy’s dreams making it hard to connect to the film. Fortunately, Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic in her role and she manages to bring her character to life with conviction. I sympathised with her struggles to bring the product to the consumer dspite setbacks. With a strong supporting cast and various comedic moments, the movie won me over. Joy is perhaps not a must see film, but one that ultimately is fun to sit through and has a statisfying ending.
Hey Nostra! I enjoyed American Hustle and The Fighter, but perhaps because I love Christian Bale. For some reason I have very little interest in seeing this one, your review doesn’t exactly make me want to see it right away. Maybe a rental.
Yeah, I’ve heard that from more people and I think that would be the perfect way to watch it. No need to see it at the cinema.
I’m so over Jennifer Lawrence I have almost zero desire to see this film. Continual “average” reviews make me even less keen than that, so I doubt I’ll check it out unless – by some minor miracle or corrupt voting by the Academy – JLaw snags yet another Oscar.
Yeah, so you aren’t a fan of her? Why?
I seem to be in the minority of people that really liked this movie. I thought it was well-acted and had a very motivating and inspirational story. I actually believe it’s Jennifer Lawrence’s best performance yet.
I have not seen enough of her work to judge that, but she was pretty solid in this.