Joy (2015) ☆ ☆

David O. Russell’s films often defy easy description, and Joy is no exception.  It is a comedic biographical drama, although it is largely fictional.  It posits that family connections are meaningfully important even when family members sue each other or cannot stand one another.  Like American Hustle it wants to be many things at once and, thus, is not particularly successful at any of them.

Russell’s film finds titular heroine Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) a single mother of two living with her mother (Virginia Madsen), her mother (Diane Ladd), Joy’s father (Robert De Niro) and Joy’s ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) all under one roof.  Lots of family idiosyncrasy and dysfunction is displayed, but for no direct purpose other than to show that modern American families are so comprised and troubled.  Then Joy has a bright idea which she tries to turn into business, which changes everyone’s lives around her.  The film then celebrates (and skewers) the entrepreneurial spirit, decreeing that all the hard work, sacrifice and tears are worth it when one reads the fine print and outfoxes the competition.

Russell continues his golden ensemble work, giving every character screen time and attention, though some characters are by necessity given less to do than others.  Strong acting is to be found from star Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in particular — and yet this story made me restless.  I didn’t care at all about the product Joy develops, nor how she was able to sell it on early QVC.  Nor did Joy’s family make me wish for a larger group of people to welcome me home.  Since neither the business material nor the family material appealed to me there really isn’t much left (for me, at least) to enjoy.

Come to think about it, I didn’t really enjoy Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle very much either.  Both are decently made movies but they’re not really about anything other than offbeat characters.  Certainly these offbeat characters represent us (perhaps more so than we care to admit), yet I’m finding these exercises increasingly thin and forced rather than fresh and intriguing.  Joy isn’t a bad film at all, and yet I didn’t really care a whit about it or its characters when the story finally comes to a close.  ☆ ☆.  5 January 2016.

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