1/2 (Century 16, Century 20)
Like all of David O. Russell’s films from the past decade, “Joy” is a bit of a mess. But this one’s self-cleaning! For the low, low price of $8.75, if you head on down to your theater now, you get this Miracle Mop! And if you act now, we’ll also give you two hours with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro!
Taking us from squalid domesticity to the QVC showroom (that’s the “Quality, Value, Convenience” home-shopping network), “Joy” spins a fable of an American Dream still attainable with the right combination of heart and smarts, pluck and luck.
Opening with the dedication, “Inspired by True Stories of Daring Women. One in particular,” the film tells the tale of Joy Mangano (Lawrence), a single mother depicted by writer-director Russell as the only thing keeping her family from coming apart at the seams. Joy raises three children with little help from her ex-husband, aspiring lounge singer Tony (<0x00C9>dgar Ram<0x00ED>rez), her nutty estranged parents, Rudy (De Niro) and Terry (Virginia Madsen), or her grandmother, Mimi (Diane Ladd), who narrates. It’s a crazy life and a full house with all of these characters under one roof, and though Joy’s “dreams are on hold,” she never stops working on the big idea that’ll be her ticket to a less stressful existence.
In unspoken solidarity with other harried working mothers, Joy comes up with invention after invention. As Mimi puts it, “Joy was one of those people who rejoiced in making things.” The Big One comes in the form of the Miracle Mop, a self-wringing, no-fuss, no-muss mop designed by Mangano to clean using a continuous loop of 300 feet of cotton. Taking the Mop to market starts local, with Rudy’s latest girlfriend, the well-off Trudy (Isabella Rossellini). A succession of business headaches eventually lead to a pitch session with Neil Walker (Cooper) at QVC.
Russell gets good work from his cast, and if his improvisatory approach to directing always results in films that feel synthetic, at least he deliberately undercuts claims to telling a true story. Despite the sloppiness (a death scene played as pivotal, though we haven’t been made to care about the deceased) and restlessness (an entirely unnecessary dream sequence), Russell’s working in an old-Hollywood myth-making vein that’s more reliant on extraordinary acting than ordinary truth.
As for Lawrence, she’s again playing a part for which she’s roughly a decade too young, but she pulls it off with ferocious spirit. If “Joy” is about anything, it’s about the kind of character we still want to believe can succeed through excellence and persistence. While saluting can-do entrepreneurship, “Joy” proposes a woman of iron will who rises stronger after each fall, whose ethics make her loyal both to those she can trust — only her ex and her BFF, Jackie (Dascha Polanco) — and to those she can’t. Though everything around this resilient central figure is wan sitcom, “Joy the Doer” provides a rooting interest potent enough to justify the film.
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Two hours, 4 minutes.
— Peter Canavese
