Joy

Rating: 7/10 (27 January 2016)

Directed by David O. Russell (Three Kings, The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), I have always said to myself that even if a film is only nominated one Oscar, I will definitely watch it, but also this one did look and sound pretty good. Basically, set in 1989, divorced mother of two Joy Mangano (Golden Globe winning, and Oscar nominated Jennifer Lawrence) works as a booking clerk for Eastern Airlines, she lives in Quogue, New York with her two young children and members of her family, including her ex-husband Tony (The Bourne Ultimatum's Édgar Ramírez). Joy's mother Terry (Candyman's Virginia Madsen) spends all day watching soap operas while lying in bed to escape her life, with Joy running the household, her mother and father Rudy (Robert De Niro) fight whenever he comes to the house. Her older half-sister Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm) as an overachiever always humiliates Joy in front of her children, her grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd) and her best friend Jackie (Dascha Polanco) are the only ones encouraging Joy to pursue her inventing ambitions and become a strong successful woman. Joy's father divorces his third wife and starts dating wealthy Italian widow Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), who has business experience, one day Joy and others take a trip on Trudy's boat, Joy drops a glass of red wine and tries to clean the mess with a mop, she cuts her hand with the broken glass when wringing the mop. Joy has an idea, she draws some random sketches, then drafts blueprints, she wants to create a self-wringing mop with a head that can also be detached and washed in the washing machine to be used again. Joy builds a prototype and convinces Trudy to invest in the product, they make a deal for low price manufacturing of mop parts with a company in California, and Joy also pays $50,000 in royalties, to avoid a potential lawsuit, to a man in Hong Kong who supposedly has created a similar product, the company bills Joy for faulty parts, but she refuses to pay the fees. Trudy advises Joy to take out a second mortgage on her home to help pay her costs, and looking for a quick, easy way to sell her product she meets QVC executive Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), he is impressed and shows Joy his in infomercials, where celebrities sell entrepreneur's products through a telethon system, Neil tells her to manufacture 50,000 mops ready to sell. The first infomercial fails, due to the celebrity presenter being unable to work the mop, Joy insists she should present her product on QVC herself, Neil agrees to give her a chance, she and her product become an overnight success, the mop earning thousands on QVC, and things look up for the family, with Terry falling for hired Haitian plumber Toussaint (Heroes' Jimmy Jean-Louis). Following the sudden death of Joy's grandmother, Rudy and Trudy send Peggy to conduct Joy's company business in California, Peggy tells Joy she paid the manufacturer excessively raised production fees, Joy is angry and meets the manufacturer in California, they refuse to pay her back, they are also fraudulently about to patent her design. Joy lawyer explains that nothing can be done to stop this, forcing her to claim bankruptcy, she discovers the manufacturer defrauded her the entire time she dealt with them, so she confronts the owner and forces him to pay her back. A few years later Joy is wealthy and runs a successful business, she continues to look after her father, he and Peggy unsuccessfully tried to sue her for company ownership, Terry has found stability through her relationship with Toussaint and is the own family member not living off Joy, Jackie and Tony are still her most valuable advisers, the film ends with Joy helping a young mother pitching her new invention. Also starring Melissa Rivers (Joan's daughter) as Joan Rivers, Donna Mills as Priscilla, Susan Lucci as Danica, Maurice Benard as Ridge, Laura Wright as Clarinda, Alexander Cook as Bartholomew and Drena De Niro (Robert's adoptive daughter) as Cindy. Lawrence does give a performance worthy of award nominations being at first undervalued, then the gutsy and determined entrepreneur, there is terrific support from De Niro, Cooper and Rossellini, I heard critics saying that this film is a mixed bag, I certainly got the feeling that I did not know where it was going, it works well with the rags (normal life) to riches element, it is a funny and inspirational true story, an inventive biographical comedy drama. It was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. Very good!