Jennifer Lawrence is a Joy

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2015)

Joy is written and directed by David O'Russel. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Isabella Rossellini, Édgar Ramírez, Diane Ladd, and Virginia Madsen.
Joy is the story of a family across four generations and the woman who rises to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business dynasty.
Rolling off that premise, the average reviews of renowned critics, and O'Russel's last entry, Accidental Love, I was skeptical towards this movie and its comedic approach to ts real life subjects. This is precisely why I'm happy to admit, I really enjoyed Joy.
Though muddled and tonally deaf, the character of Joy is brought to life in full autonomy by the power of Lawrence's surprisingly devoted performance. Able to shift between moods almost instantaneously and proving her prowess in combating veterans like De Niro and out shining them, Lawrence was the best part of this movie and I predict an Oscar nod and possible win. Though She was magnificent the problem lied in the construction of her character.
In the first, and by far the worst, act of this movie, Joy is introduced as a lovable, hardworking, overly sentimental, and beyond awkward girl. This doesn't compliment anyone in the cast for the fact that she isn't different or strange enough to stand out from her equally dull and clichéd family who have uninteresting confrontation and unbearably uneven Banter. This leads to a satire that becomes what it tries to satirize, that being a soap opera. With that said, Joy is also too strange to be relatable and too awkward to be endearing.
The first act also suffers from over crowding and unflinchingly annoying characters, for example Trudi. A lot of the characters in act one are used as plot devices, which would work if they weren't developed upon more than the leads. This leads to a very confusing roaster of characters, most of which don't make it to act two.
Moving past act one, this movie blossoms into something truly entertaining. O' Russel's unwieldy writing finally compliments Joy as she gained some confidence. No longer awkward or strange, Joy finally became a relatable hero that I wanted to root for. Moving past our main protagonist, the stakes were raised and the tension build, in this act leading to an improved sense of humor, a new found focus, and a palpable family drama. This act also produced one of my favorite characters, Neil Walker.
Neil Walker, portrayed by Bradley Cooper, is the only other character that manages to distinguish himself from the lot. Cooper is brilliant in the role as he dawns this often times obnoxiously slick but never the less intriguing character.
Act three keeps this new found focus and delivers a well crafted twist ending, that'll fox viewers who weren't wholly engrossed in the movie. By act three Lawrence more than proved her worthiness for another Oscar, by completely reinventing her character enough so everything evens out. Though I do praise act two and three and condemn act one, all three acts do get caught up in Oscar bait which did, somewhat, lessen the bite of the climax.
Joy works as tremendous showcase of Jennifer Lawrence talent and as a moderately compelling, if a bit uneven, biography. Joy gets a B or a 6/10.