Title: Joy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins

What It Is: Joy Mangano (Lawrence) is a mother of two working very hard to support her family. She put her dreams on hold to help out her father Rudy (De Niro) and her sister Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm) run the family business. Likewise, she has her ex-husband Tony (Edgar Ramirez) living in the basement of the family home. When Joy comes up with the idea that would become the Miracle Mop. She asks her father’s new girlfriend Trudy (Isabella Rossellini) to put up some collateral. When it gets picked up by Neil Walker (Cooper) and his QVC cable network the sales go through the roof and all of her doubters start to see what sort of constitution this woman is made of.

What We Think: What in the blue hell is Russell doing here? This film is an absolute mess. It shifts focus far too much. There’re too many “soap opera drama” scenes in the film that try to relate themselves to the film. Lawrence’s performance just deserved a better film around it. She really gets to do it all here. Showing genuine emotion and really hammering home Mangano’s determined spirit. Most of the supporting cast is way too underdeveloped. Like they’re there but you don’t give a crap about them. Perhaps that works because I felt they just leeched off of Joy anyway. They traipse through the story without ever truly impacting it.

Our Grade: C+, Such an unfocused effort. David O. Russell I suppose hit his peak with Silver Linings Playbook. Even American Hustle was just too bloated and uninteresting. Joy has such potential and it is all squandered by too much attention to the unimportant stuff. JLaw and BCoop deserve better than this. I’m quite certain Russell will use them again hopefully in a better film next time. It has been a year of mediocrity for Russell when you consider he took his name off of Accidental Love a film he directed several years ago that barely got any sort of release this year. If you decide to click that link you’ll see just how bad that film is. In addition Cooper and Lawrence were also in a stinker this year called Serena which is also equally terrible.