Joy (2015)

I really tried to liked or at least understand this movie but it seem to be an impossible task. I keep it brief - imagine that the screenplay is written by several schizophrenics who fight over whether they write a comedy, drama, melodrama or anything in between throughout the film. Characters come and go without realizing what they should bring to the story. Add poor Isabella Rossellini to the mix (the most bizarre act I have seen in years) who has lines so unbearably surreal no one could possibly carry them without looking like a lunatic. Add nightmarish soap opera merging with the plot. Boom! No sense what-so-ever. Jennifer tried really hard to keep this scrambled mess of a movie bearable and to watch she is only reason it is not a complete disaster. I feel dizzy now!

Fmovies: "Joy" is one of the most disappointing films of the year (if not the most). The great cast with names such as Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen and Isabella Rossellini gives the sensation to the viewer that "Joy" might be a great film. However, the storyline of a creative woman that lives with her dysfunctional family and invents a mop, becoming a successful woman, has a boring and dull story and consequently screenplay; in addition, the soundtrack is annoying. In the end, "Joy" is a waste of time and talented cast. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Joy: O Nome do Sucesso" ("Joy: The Name of the Success")

(Rating: ☆☆ out of 4)

This film is not recommended.

In brief: Clean-up in Aisle 4

GRADE: C

The usually reliable David O. Russell lets down his fine cast of performers in his latest film, Joy, which doesn't quite live up to its title. Except for a strong performance from its lead, the delightful Jennifer Lawrence, the film remains a major disappointment.

The film is loosely based on the true story of inventor Joy Mangano, but the screenplay also written by its director is a mess that needs to clean up its act. The film swings wildly between comedy and drama but never stays long enough to be effective in either category. Joy, winningly played by Ms. Lawrence, is interesting and the actress brings some verve to her role, but all of the supporting characters around her are sketchy and never amount to much more than quirky curmudgeons whose actions are so over-the-top that they never resemble anything remotely believable.

The plot: Joy's life is in shambles (but then, so is the script). Living slightly above the poverty level and sharing her household with her dysfunctional divorced parents, Terry (Virginia Madsen), a reclusive soap opera addicted mother, and Rudy, a crotchety self-absorbed father (Robert De Niro) who takes up with a rich Italian widow named Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), Joy's ex-husband, Tony (Edgar Ramirez), who is trying to be a professional singer, Peggy (Elizabeth Rohm), her jealous stepsister, and Joy's two adorable children. Still her creative impulses compel her take action and change the direction her life is taking, which leads Joy to her long- time friend and adversary in business, Neil (Bradley Cooper), who gives her moral support on her latest venture.

However, none of these relationships build to any satisfactory conclusion due to the stilted writing and uneven tone of the film. The ending also seems pat and forced as it quickly tries to tie up its loose ends, be they cotton or synthetic.

With all of the talent involved, sadly, Joy is a joyless filmgoing experience.

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Joy fmovies. Joy is a fine half a film. The performances all-around are strong, the story is uncommon enough to grab your attention, and keep you invested, and the direction is solid. With all that in mind, Joy still feels like a shallow version of what could have been. There is a reason why all the movie's Oscar buzz has all but dissipated in every category except a courtesy nod to Jennifer Lawrence as Best Actress; Why? You should read on.

Lawrence plays the titular character, a mother of two with a very complicated home life. Though divorced, her ex-husband (Ramirez) lives in the basement waiting for his singing career to take off. Though she has decidedly negative relationships with her parents, her shut-in mother (Madsen) lives with her and her father (De Niro) is a serial divorcée with a struggling auto repair shop. It's also the 1980's and she works the night shift for an Airline that's dramatically cutting back hours; yikes. The only thing she has going for her is she likes to tinker and has the work ethic to see a good idea through. So when she has a eureka moment after a failed excursion on her father's new girlfriend's boat, she quickly invents a household object that may just be her ticket out of systemic poverty.

I don't think I'm giving much away by saying the movie asks its audience to hinge their emotional cache on a mop. The self-wringing Miracle Mop to be exact, invented by honest-to-God real person Joy Mangano. Leave it to director David O. Russell to find a decent story in the life of a QVC luminary and keep it just this side of rational. The prologue of the film lovingly dedicates the movie to "daring women," which Joy certainly is but Russell wisely omits the last name to give the audience a universality. This too can be your story of success if you have grit and a good idea. It's a great theme sadly worth a much better movie.

Part of the problem is the pace. There are long stretches of improvisations that carry absolutely no emotional weight. Unlike American Hustle (2013) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012) where the rushed, overlapping dialogue and melodramatic mugging serves to highlight the immediacy of, say dealing with the mob, here there's nothing holding us to the characters and their goals...except Joy. Russell seems to be aware of his own style and juxtaposes the lives on screen with an 80's era soap opera which consumes the life of Joy's mother. The parallel is interesting in theory but the results deflate the proceedings.

Not usually the voice of hope, I really wanted to like this movie. A movie about the positives of hard work and entrepreneurship has not hit theaters since Pursuit of Happyiness (2006). Yet out of all modern directors working today, David O. Russell feels like a quixotic mouthpiece for such a hopeful theme. His movies always have an unabashed pessimism about human nature that undermines his characters with an almost Bunuelian sense of treachery. Even as far back as his Three Kings (1999) days there was a mercurial, bittersweet undercurrent to his work. Joy bares disappointment after disappointment to a breaking point most protagonists of this genre would buckle under. Then, as if to put a band-aid on an open gash, the movie ends with an epilogue that's pat to the point of flimflam.

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This is a supposedly "inspirational" kind-of movie based on the life of Joy Mangano a business woman and inventor of home products.

As I'm reading this is far from the actual life of Mangano (who, unlike the Joy in the movie, she went to University and has a degree in business administration). It is more like a blend of the stories of other housewives turned to businesswomen (if you can believe that) and contains lots of fictional elements for dramatic purposes.

Nevertheless the plot is weak. So is the script. There isn't any actual moral here (like "Try and you will succeed"), and the narration of her grandmother dilutes any of that "moral" with too much "it is your destiny" crap.

Soooo, the movie is an empty shell (or should I say Sell, pun intended) but is it fun to watch? No. Not really.

The characters (including Robert De Niro's who plays her father, Elisabeth Röhm's who plays her half-sister, Virginia Madsen's who plays her mother and Isabella Rossellini's who plays her father's girlfriend and serves as the initial investor) are heavily unsympathetic.

The direction is blunt, the pace uneven (I wont spoil you but the resolution of all problems comes in just a few seconds near the end), the situations unbelievable (like going to the...bathroom and unveil a conspiracy by pure luck) etc.

Overall: A blunt movie with weak script and plot. The unsympathetic characters also make this unbearable. Not fun to watch and no true moral in this fictitious sequence of events.

It's not hard to see why this movie divides people. Some will always find a tale of an under-dog's trial over adversity compelling, no matter how clumsily it's told. And some will find a story about the manufacture of a mop dull, no matter how charismatic the characters or inspirational the telling of the tale. The problem here is that charisma and inspiration are in short supply. David O. Russell doesn't make much of the real strengths of the story. And he can't resist imposing his trademark style on characters and a story that really don't either warrant or suit it. So the characters are more than a little grotesque around the edges; the situations are all heightened, even given an absurdist spin; and the facts are never allowed to get in the way, even when they might actually strengthen the story. So much of Joy is desperately predictable, which makes for dispiriting viewing. And the real moments of surprise or pathos are just so much grist to the Russell mill. Jennifer Lawrence somehow shines through in the lead, and Isabella Rossellini does her best to enliven her scenes, but that's about where the positives end. For the most part, Joy is a tedious mess. While it's a story that would probably never have been told without David O. Russell wanting to enhance it with his schtick, it's a story I wish they'd entrusted to anyone other than David O. Russell.