There’s little joy to be found in David O. Russell’s ‘Joy’
When it was announced that David O. Russell's next movie would tell the story of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano, I couldn't wait to see how the filmmaker responsible for such recent delights as "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle" could turn that into a compelling movie.
I'm still waiting.
Because "Joy," the writer-director's third collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper, is — with the exception of a wonderful 20 minutes or so — a flummoxing, rarely engaging chore.
Joy's (Lawrence) life is a mess. Her mother (Virginia Madsen) won't leave her bedroom or the TV that's always playing her favorite soap opera. Her dad (De Niro) was just deposited on her doorstep by his latest squeeze. And the basement is currently occupied by her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez). Also, she's broke, behind on her bills and the plumbing's a mess.
Then, during an afternoon sail on the 55-foot yacht belonging to the widow (Isabella Rossellini) her dad met through a 900 number, Joy breaks a glass of wine on the deck, mops it up and slices her hands wringing out the mop.
Later that night, she has trouble sleeping, so her family forces a couple of belts of expired children's cough medicine on her. She awakes with a vision that would become the Miracle Mop.
After striking out with mop companies — it turns out they aren't really all that interested in selling "the only mop you'll ever have to buy" — and trying to distribute them out of her car in snowy parking lots, Joy sees her luck turn around when she finds her way to a cable upstart known as QVC.
They take place maybe an hour in, after an awful lot of frustration, but the scenes with QVC executive Neil Walker (Cooper) wrangling the on-air talent and showing Joy the behind-the-scenes wonders of a home-shopping channel are absolute moviemaking magic.
They're responsible for the only real joy in "Joy."
When they aren't focusing on patent law, the remaining hour and 45 minutes strain mightily to come off as wacky, but they're mostly a mess not even the Miracle Mop could clean up.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch
