The life and times of Joy, inventor of the self-wringing mop.

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2016)

I found this movie on DVD from my local library. I must like David O. Russell films, this is one in a line that keeps getting longer.
Joy Mangano is a real person and the one who invented the self-wringing mop that sold well on QVC. As the writer/director explains in the making-of extra, maybe 50% of this movie is actually based on her and her story, the rest of daring females he either heard about or knew. The rest is fiction including many fictional characters. His purpose was to tell a good story, not to make a biographical film.
I have had a lukewarm feeling for Jennifer Lawrence but the more I see her the more I like her. She really is a good actress, here she plays Joy from about 25 to about 45. She was born into a very dysfunctional family and put off college to help take care of her 'mental' mother, even though Joy had been Valedictorian of her class. Now she was working as an airline agent. With two children and her ex husband living in her basement.
By way of backstory we see as a young girl of maybe 10 she had a vivid imagination but had lost that over the years. Her big inspiration comes when they are on a sail boat, some bottles of wine break, she mops up the mess but cuts her hands on shards of glass. What if she could invent a self-wringing mop with a removable head that can be thrown into the laundry?
The whole story follows her and her difficulties in the real world of business, patents, and deceptive contractors. The real Joy now has over 100 patents and a thriving business.
I enjoyed this movie and Lawrence is super.