Joy

Sometimes in life people are creative and their creativity is stifled due to a lack of a support system.  When that happens in real life it is a horrible heart wrenching experience, when it happens in David O. Russell’s latest film Joy it’s expected and incredibly frustrating.  Joy stars Jennifer Lawrence as the titular character who was an inventor in the late 1980s and created a miracle mop that revolutionized a fledging network called QVC.  If Joy only focused on her invention of the miracle mop and her rise to prominence at QVC this would be a much better film.  Unfortunately, the film spends a lot of time with Joy and her relationship with her family.  To describe Joy’s family as dysfunctional is an understatement.  They manipulate Joy to make many questionable business decisions when her product is still in its infancy and they treat Joy herself like a child when all she is trying to do is be as independent and ambitious as possible.

I wanted to like Joy because her personality is truly what makes the movie plausible.  I loved watching her cleverly design what she hoped would be her future and then viewing the contrast of what her life became.  I love all of the scenes with Joy at QVC with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper).  In all of those moments she feels hopeful and energetic.  Joy as a film always has a sense of purpose but her relatives and specifically her father halt her potential.

The best compliment I can give Joy is that it is so well directed by David O Russell.  Russell knows how to hold on moments to really make the audience feel as though they are experiencing life with Joy.  Russell also has a skillful eye at being able to construct the idea of what Americana and the American dream looks like visually.  He has these moments when he just slows down the film and shows you Joy’s environment.  This type of filmmaking really allowed audiences to see life from Joy’s perspective and at the very least makes the film a unique viewing experience.

You can’t talk about Joy without mentioning Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.  As much as Lawrence commands the screen in the latter half of the film, she isn’t given much to work with other than portraying someone who appears weak and uninspired and while that is indeed the film and filmmakers intention, few of those moments of frustration rang as genuine emotions for me.  I also didn’t believe Lawrence as a mother in the film because she is still is considerably young to be considered maternal in any sense.

While I grasp the immense difficult that it takes to start a business, Joy’s family is ultimately the reason this great looking film falters.  The incessant nagging of Joy about how useless her idea is and the horrible business decisions they force her into ultimately make the film drag horribly.  Robert De Niro in this film is particularly wasted as Joy’s father.  You would think that he would be the most supportive person in Joy’s life but he actually causes the most issues especially when you address the financial side of her invention.

Had this film been structured more effectively to highlight Joy’s skills as an inventor then I would have appreciated the viewing experience more but all Joy ends up being is a mediocre biography about a woman who pioneered in home shopping.  I didn’t buy what this movie was selling.