Don't Expect Silver Linings Playbook

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2015)

The star power of Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, together again after wonderful chemistry in "Silver Linings Playbook" is not enough to make this film a top-tier film for 2015.
Ms. Lawrence plays an extremely co-dependent woman who cannot say "No" to anyone. Her mother lives in her bed watching soaps 24-hours a day, her father moves in and out of the house when his lady friends throw him out, and her ex-husband lives in her basement where he practices his Latin songs. Her plans to become someone important have been postponed by all the care taking she must do for her many, ungrateful hangers-on.
She is to become a giant star of cable home shopping networks. She invents a new kind of mop and goes deeply into debt to finance the fabrication of 50,000 of them to be sold on a cable shopping show.
Everything goes wrong. Her supplier is crooked; her sister tries to undermine her commercial triumph, her father is a fool in business, and Joy reaches the edge of complete disaster.
The story ends happily enough and Joy becomes some sort of home shopping channel legend, and thereby, she is able to continue to provide for her worthless family members.
The cast of characters were not evil, but they were unlikeable. The arc of the story was too predictable. In the end, it was hard to root for Joy who makes millions selling crap on channels I avoid at all costs. It is not an awful film, but it does not approach the brilliance of the film which first brought these actors together.