Joy Review

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini

Joy is the third collaboration between writer-director David O. Russell and Jennifer Lawrence. She first she got an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a mentally ill woman in Silver Linings Playbook. Then American Hustle got her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and another Academy Award nomination. Those were ensemble movies, with the talents of Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Adams making the movies great. Here, Jennifer Lawrence is all on her own. Sure, she has a talented supporting cast, but she is unarguably front-and-center. Joy is about Joy Mangano, the woman who invented the self-wringing Miracle Mop and became a huge businesswoman. But from the trailers and commercials, would you be able to tell? The marketing has been extremely vague, basically just selling this as a Russell-Lawrence collaboration. And third time is the charm, right? Sadly, not with Joy. While Joy has a lot of heart, it is severely lacking. Lawrence is at her best, and she truly shines in the role, but the rest of the movie doesn't have that same spark.

Jennifer Lawrence drives the movie. But even she isn't enough to save it. She is able to act with a relatability few actresses have. You instantly sympathize with what she is going through, and you want her to succeed. Joy Mangano is a great heroine. If you've seen Lawrence's work, it's what we've come to expect. She succeeds, but I think it's at expense of the others. The rest of the cast is a little ridiculous. Bradley Cooper gave what may be his creepiest and weirdest performance yet. I think Robert De Niro as her father was really funny, but there wasn't any depth there. His girlfriend, played by Isabella Rossellini was one of the strangest characters in the movie. She has very strange dialogue, with weird scenes. She just becomes so annoying, and she and the rest of the family just merge into a blob. Everybody tells Lawrence she can't do it, and it all blends together. There's no room for anyone else to give a believable performance. The family drama is there, but it isn't anywhere near as compelling as the family in Silver Linings Playbook. She's the only one you really like.

The biggest problem is its inconsistency. It has no idea what kind of movie it should be. A comedy? A drama? A biopic?  The opening of the movie is terrible. It opens with old soap opera actors re-enacting scenes in a "new" soap in black and white, flashes of color appearing as they debate over a gun. It literally has no place being in this movie. You later learn that Joy's mother watches soaps 24/7. So that justifies it as an opening? The beginning is also very message-heavy. I believe that a movie's message should be something people can take away from a movie. But Joy beats you over the head with it at the beginning, using cheesy dialogue and a tacky narration. The film is narrated by Joy's dead grandmother. She's alive for part of the movie, but continues to narrate after she's dead. Not only does she narrate, she shows up in the movie after she's dead. I could not figure out if she ever really died or if it was a dream. Speaking of dreams, Joy has a few dream sequences but you can't tell if it's a dream or not. Everything feels rushed, but Lawrence comes out unscathed.

Joy also has a really great depiction of business and telemarketing. I was fascinated by how cutthroat it was in the 70's, and how unfair people could be. I think this story of a woman rising up is one that needs to be told, but it needed to not get caught up in a feminist message. I'm not against feminism, but this movie gets lost in it, to a point where, like I stated earlier, Joy Mangano is the only good character. If you're a fan of Jennifer Lawrence, you'll like the movie as I did. I didn't hate Joy, it was actually a pretty enjoyable movie. I just see the potential it could, and should have had. The last third is fantastic, a sign that the movie could have been great. Lawrence deserves an Oscar nomination for her great work, but I think that's all you'll see of Joy in this year's awards season.

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