Hello! This is my first post and it is going to be a review of the movie Joy!
Some things to know about Joy before I delve into my review of it is that it is a David O. Russell film, meaning that he wrote and directed it. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro. This all-star cast have starred in O. Russell films before which include Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.
Brief Summary of Joy: In the 1980s a woman in her 30s is struggling to make enough money to support her two kids, mother, and ex-husband who is living in the basement of her house. She has always had a knack for inventing things and brining them to life; when she cuts her hands on glass as she wrings out a mop an idea hits her. She later goes on to invent a mop that has a plastic piece on it that can be slid down over the mop head to wring it out without having to touch the material. Joy gets a spot on an infomercial channel and ends up selling over 100,000 of her mops and as she continues with the advertising the numbers soar. Conflict happens between Joy and her family and eventually the company producing the parts for her mop starts charging her an outrageous amount. She files for bankruptcy but goes through all of the documents she has and figures out that the company making her parts has started to make parts for their own mop that they ripped off from Joy. She is able to solve that problem and goes on to creating her won company where her best friend and ex-husband work for her.
Review: I found this movie to be well written and directed by O. Russell but after having seen American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook I must say that Joy falls short. Personally, I get frustrated with characters that let people walk all over them and never stand up for themselves; Joy proved to be this type of character. Jennifer Lawrence's performance as a whole was great but it was sub par to what she has done in the past. I don't believe that these characters were a stretch to play for any of the actors but that is not to say that they didn't do the characters justice. The plot was very well developed and the movie went at a pace that allowed the audience to fully grasp what was happening without dragging. Jennifer Lawrence's performance, personally, wasn't Oscar worthy, which surprised me because I think that every time she is nominated it is well deserved.
All-in-all this was an entertaining and inspiring movie to watch but the characters frustrated me too much. The Oscar nominations aren't well deserved in my eyes, especially compared with the movies it's up against. I feel that because this movie is based off of a real woman and events that actually occurred in her life that it would have been a stronger movie with incredible characters but it just goes to show that not every movie a person makes is going to be as good as their last.
