I watched this because it was nominated
for two Golden Globes in the Best Motion Picture – Comedy or
Musical and Best Performance By an Actress In a Motion Picture –
Comedy or Musical categories.
I like David O. Russell's work. I don't
always agree that it is award-worthy, but it is almost always
entertaining and worth the time it takes to watch. Joy is not
award-worthy, in my opinion, and I would list it on the bottom of a
best to worsts list of David O. Russell work.
The character, Joy, is a divorced
mother of two, struggling to take care of her life, her family and
extended family's lives, when suddenly, she decided to pursue her
childhood dream of creating something. She comes up with an idea,
then into the business world she goes and finds a different struggle
to overcome.
The film Joy just didn't flow. It felt
at times to be speeding up, so much is happening and progress is
being made. Then...BAM! All of a sudden we're trudging through mud.
And I use mud to illustrate another point: This movie didn't clearly
get across what it was. Is it supposed to be motivational to women
with ideas who feel weighed down by life? Is is supposed to be funny?
Am I supposed to relate to Joy?
Another question that wasn't clarified
by the film is why all of a sudden did Joy decide to go after her
childhood dreams? It can't just be because she “had it up to here”
with the family and living situation. That was clearly going on for
quite some time. What, along with “having it up to here, ” makes
Joy grow some cajones, take control, then suddenly castrate
herself?
The David O. Russell-style flashbacks
shine light on a few things. For example, we learn when she started
being creative as a young girl, and for how long she knew her close
friends, but those flashbacks also generate more questions. For
example, I wondered what happened to the relationship between Joy and
her half-sister? How did her mother managed to stay in bed and watch
soap operas all the time? What went wrong in her marriage?
You know, it's funny. My best friend
was just recounting a conversation he was having with someone else
about how without a good backstory you would miss the point. His
example was The Royal Tenenbaums. If you didn't see it from the
beginning where the dad was doing a great job at being a bad father,
then you would just think the adult versions of the Tenenbaum
children were simply being ungrateful assholes. I think David O.
Russell failed to give Joy a good enough backstory.
Also, the movie ran too long. There was
to much time spent on scenes and characters that just didn't matter
in the end. This is the only mention of Jennifer Lawrence. There.
I'm giving Joy two stars **. I kind of
want to watch it again to see if there's something I missed, but I
don't really want to go through that, again. If this popped up while
flipping channels and I couldn't find anything else or if I just
wanted something on while I cleaned, then I'd probably watch it,
again.
Golden Globes
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical
