Joy

Genre: Drama

Director: David O. Russell

Screenplay: David O. Russell, based on a story by Annie Mumolo and David O. Russell

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Rohm, Edgar Ramirez, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Dascha Polanco

Running Length:  124 minutes

Synopsis: Joy is the wild story of a family across four generations centered on Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence), the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, pave the road in this intense emotional and human comedy about becoming a true boss of family and enterprise facing a world of unforgiving commerce.

Review: If not for the interesting (true but heavily fictionalized) story of Joy Mangano and a riveting central performance by Jennifer Lawrence as the rags-to-riches businesswoman, Joy would have been a much more joyless affair to watch. This is David O. Russell’s first movie centred entirely on a female character, but Erin Brockovich this is not. It’s almost as though O. Russell is unable to make up his mind about how to go about making this “biopic” and the wild tonal and narrative shifts actually detract quite a bit from the cinematic experience.

The ensemble sequences and sprawling narrative in Joy don’t work as well as in O. Russell’s previous films, and his tendency of putting everyone in an enclosed space, shouting at one another really grates after a while. There are also odd surrealist moments that are absolutely unnecessary, jarring viewers out of the moment and probably scratching their heads in puzzlement. Even though many of O. Russell’s alumni make a return in the film, the sparks simply fail to fly in many of the interactions, because the characters are basically reduced to plot-forwarding caricatures this time round.

There is a glorious 30 minutes in Joy in which everything actually comes together, and that is the sequence which traces her first interaction with TV studio exec Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) to when she makes her first live pitch on QVC. Lawrence’s transformation from unsure inventor to QVC pitchwoman is indeed magical, and her performance really sells it very well. Jennifer Lawrence has established herself as one of the best young actresses around, and her credible and sympathetic turn as Joy Mangano is yet another feather in her cap, though it’s not her best performance thus far.

Unfortunately, after the high of the QVC sequence, the film never finds a sure footing again, with the denouement feeling uncharacteristically rushed (case in point – a haircut is the sole visual shorthand O. Russell employs to signify the change and growth of Joy in a pivotal scene) and somehow inconsequential. While still a sporadically entertaining film, Joy doesn’t measure up to the previous efforts of O. Russell and feels like a rare misstep for the director.

Rating: ** ½ (out of four stars)