Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

David O’Russell’s 'Joy' Inspires Anything But

Jennifer-Lawrencecopy
Jennifer Lawrence backstage at the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016.

The premise is daring: can the genesis of a mop that revolutionized the household cleaning industry and the story of the determined woman behind it make for a compelling drama? That is the gamble David O’Russell takes in "Joy" (2015), which premiered on Dec. 25, 2015. Starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano, the famous inventor of the Miracle Mop, the film tracks her real-life rise from de facto family matriarch to successful entrepreneur. By the film's end, we are expected to breathe a sigh of relief that Joy has traversed a rocky path to success, laden with jealous stepsisters, incompetent QVC hawkers and greedy parts suppliers. But unlike Ms. Mangano’s improbable success, that sigh doesn’t feel well-earned. The greatest failure of "Joy" is that it can’t invest the viewer in any of its characters' trajectories—even that of the headstrong woman at its center.

The epic atmosphere O’Russell establishes from the outset with the voiceover of Joy’s grandmother (Diane Ladd) doesn’t help. We are introduced to a young Joy, whose dollhouse fantasies envision a picture of domestic happiness, in which there’s no need for men and Joy's left free to create. The morass Joy finds herself in nearly 20 years later—single mother raising three children, working at an airport, with a deadbeat ex-husband Tony (a charming Edgar Ramirez) living in the basement, mother Terry (a heavily made-up Virginia Madsen) effectively immobilized by daytime soap operas (which become a murky metaphor for the film, abruptly dropped halfway through) and father Rudy (Robert DeNiro) moving back in, fresh off his second divorce—is a far cry from the boundless dreams she entertained growing up. Joy has become a blue-collar Cinderella. When her salvation does finally come, it is in the form of glass, but it’s no magically-conjured slipper. Rudy takes up with a new woman, a wealthy widow named Trudy (Isabella Rosselini). While aboard Trudy’s late husband’s yacht, Joy drops a bottle of red wine, spreading shards of glass and splashes of wine across the deck. She gets down on her hands and knees to clean up the mess, lodging shards of glass in her hand whenever she wrings the mop. You can see the epiphany blooming in her head as she looks from the mop to her hands and from her hands to the deck. Thus, the Miracle Mop is born, and the plot set in motion.

Or so we think. First, Joy has to haggle over some parts, deal with her jealous half-sister Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm), who sees the opportunities Joy has received as evidence of favoritism, and meet with QVC executive Neil Walker (an underutilized Bradley Cooper) to pitch her product. All of these challenges present interesting potential paths for the movie to go down—especially Joy's relationship with Walker. Despite the transparently feminist tone of the film, the relationship might have benefited from a more traditional romantic storyline, even if that meant taking liberties with the actual story of Mangano's life (though as a co-producer of the film, the real Mangano probably would have objected). The chemistry between Lawrence and Cooper is certainly there, but the plot remains maddeningly indecisive, packing each new development in like another shirt crammed into an already-overstuffed carry-on. The film never seems to stop to take stock of its internal chaos.

We’ve seen O’Russell pull off this brand of frenetic filmmaking in his previous two films, "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) and "American Hustle" (2013). Seeing it come apart here gives you a sense of how difficult it was to balance all of the elements in those films and somehow make them coherent. That’s not to say "Joy" is totally irredeemable; Lawrence once again showcases her considerable talents and O’Russell’s camera follows her lovingly, staying tight on her face while allowing her ample room to experiment. To call her his muse at this point would be an understatement—she buoys this film while it sags. Thanks in large part to Lawrence’s charisma as a performer, the film does pick up by the third act, starting with a magnificent scene in which Joy, who insists on sporting her typical working mother outfit of a blouse and slacks, appears before the QVC cameras to tout her new product to the viewers at home. A bundle of nerves, she falters at first, then hits her stride, and after watching gleefully as the sales numbers climb on the digital monitor, she finishes with a bang. In some ways, this scene is representative of the whole movie. The only difference being that by the time O’Russell finally gets around to selling us his product, we’ve already tuned out.

Summary David O'Russell's trademark brand of frenetic film making falls flat - despite a strong performance from Jennifer Lawrence.
2.5 Stars