Not what was expected - much better than expected

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2015)

This movie was very entertaining and I liked it. It would have been a much better picture and would have had a bigger audience if they dropped off the two occurrences of profanity. After the first few minutes I thought "OK, here's another holiday film about a dysfunctional family. It was not that kind of movie, and the weirdness of the family members was just building up what Joy has been having to deal with all her life. While the themes "rags to riches" and "hard work only leads to being beat up by the big guys" has been done before, this story has lots of details of the main characters, who are uniquely colorful and entertaining. I read a few of the other reviews, and I think most of the negative reviews were written from a perspective of just trying to impress the readers of the writer's 'brilliance' in perception. The pace was right on, and I never took my eyes off the screen. Most movies are predictable, and that can be boring. However, this movie was NOT predictable and had many pleasant surprises.