A soporific mess with a shamelessly obvious agenda

Rating: 1/10 (9 November 2019)

Despite the fact that I like Lawrence, when Joy was released, I decided to skip it, because the story of the woman who invented the Magic Mop did not seem gripping enough to carry a movie. Fast forward to TV broadcast and I found out that I was right.
The plot is your average "be yourself to overcome all problems", compounded by an overdose of pseudo-feminism.... and if being oneself was enough to be successful, we'd all be rich and famous.
Joy's grandmother narrates the events, adding nothing to the plot, except weirdness. Joy was a creative child, but her parents' divorce damaged her and she took years to recover, gathering a failed marriage and two children on the way. Joy is presently encumbered (and blessed?) by her family of weirdoes, inclusive of ex-hubbyTony, living in her basement and serial monogamist daddy Rudy, embarking in yet another relationship with wealthy Italian Trudy.
Her sparkle of genius comes about when she is forced to mop a broken glass from the floor, cutting her hands to squeeze the mop. A normal person would swipe the glass away before mopping, but in Joy's case, this prompted the creation of the Magic Mop.
What follow is a messy start of a business enterprise, in which every member of her dysfunctional family gets involved, giving advice ranging from reasonable to extremely bad.
Probably, not many would be interested in the story of how the pencil sharpener came to be, especially if the inventor was a man. In this case, since we're dealing with a female entrepreneur at the time of the #metoo, we're all supposed to root for Joy.
Unfortunately, the script is extremely loose, some characters are totally useless (Joy's mother), other plain cliche (the evil step-sister). The strength of female bonding is overplayed (Joy and her BFF and her daughter and her grandmother) while heterosexual romance goes straight to the bin (failed relationship all over the place) to underline Joy's independence.
I always found it difficult to enjoy a movie with an shameless agenda and this is no exception.