Joy (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Joy (2015) – D. O. Russell

There’s no denying that David O. Russell is a master filmmaker and he brings his craftsmanship to this picture too.  However, the story about the woman who invented the “miracle mop” and rose to prominence on the early shopping channel, QVC, doesn’t attain lift.  This is probably more the fault of the screenplay (by Russell himself) than the acting (featuring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Isabella Rossellini, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, and more).  Perhaps we’ve seen too many rags-to-riches “American Dream” stories by now and, well, they just aren’t believable anymore.  In fact, they seem almost wrong-headed in the way they might lull people who deserve to be starting a revolution into wasting their time trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps within the system.  Joy (the title character) certainly does face a lot of setbacks, but to the accompaniment of just the right music, with her badass shades on and a confident walk, she wins out over the bastards.  The fact that this is based on a true story doesn’t make it any less of a (hollow) fantasy.