David O. Russell’s movie Joy, which he co-wrote and directed, succeeds in its mission a bit too well for its own good. The title refers to the main character’s name, Joy, portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games). She’s terribly put upon, creative and smart and she bears a burden by choice that she carries throughout her quest to retain her youthful idealism.
It’s a noble pursuit dramatized with the familiar method, writing and cast employed by Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), so Lawrence is joined again by Robert De Niro (New York, New York) as her father and Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) as her business affiliate. The cast shines and layered themes come into curious and creative play as Joy—a harried daughter, mother, granddaughter, ex-wife, airline agent and would-be inventor—attempts to remake herself as an entrepreneur. The catalyst is Joy’s faith; her belief in herself, her family and humanity.
This becomes Joy‘s problem, too.
That’s because faith in oneself is not the same as confidence in oneself, which is in reality what Joy—a characterization based upon a real businesswoman—must possess in order to do what she does. What she does is amazing, all the more so because she’s up against so many complicating factors such as an ex-husband who is also her friend, parents who are both delusional in their own ways and a business plan that’s contingent upon an heiress (Isabella Rosellini getting feisty) who has more chutzpah than chops when it comes to backing up the business. Much of Joy is fun to watch and appreciate for its core truths about a host of cleverly conceived and implanted ideas—keeping one’s reason in a world gone mad, cleaning up other people’s messes, making and doing one’s own business—and the writing and performances give it a glow.
Joy’s confidence permits her to invent an innovative mop (inspired by cleaning others’ messes) that lets the cleaner keep clean. Joy fights for it from design, rights and manufacturing to sales and distribution, even confining herself to what she sees as the best funding sources and counsel. The concept makes sense, persuades in its proof of concept test, meets a demand and her grandmother (Diane Ladd) reaffirms her belief in Joy while her young daughter is a strong source of support, so Joy’s confidence is reinforced and well founded. With Joy’s flashbacks to a lost childhood amid bickering parents signalling a serious rediscovery of her ego, Joy sets the scene for the perfect cashing in. Cooper’s proto-capitalist, citing self-made Hollywood moguls and visionary theories about media as a means for mass commercialism—emphasizing quality, value and convenience with help from none other than Joan Rivers—ups the ante for a jackpot.
But appearing to make the case for confidence through capitalism comes at the expense of the picture’s theme, which is based on more ordinary ideas. The clues are peppered throughout Joy. An early flashback hints at the outcome. Joy keeps saying that she’s following what others tell her to do when things go wrong, though she never takes pride—she takes charge, she takes responsibility but she never really takes credit or pride—when things go right. A crucifix figures into an important scene. This absence of pride (and, yes, joy) leaves the residue of what can best be described as counterfeit egoism; a movie that purports to be about reclaiming oneself which depicts neither the reclamation nor the main character’s esteem of herself.
This accounts for the letdown when, in a crucial scene when the entrepreneurial dust settles, Joy, having expended the energy of meltdowns, shakedowns and staredowns, goes blank and decidedly joyless. Joy, it turns out, is selfless and, worse from my perspective, she chooses this path to fulfill some distorted childish notion that she needs to want no one. This after the best serious moneymaker makeover scene since Mike Nichols‘ 1988 triumphant love story of Wall Street, capitalism and man-woman equality, Working Girl.
By confusing and swapping faith and confidence as it figures into one’s ability to make money, Joy falters in achieving its apparently intended movie poster moment, with snowflakes, enlightenment and Christmastime. There’s plenty to appreciate, from a decent character role for Virginia Madsen as a neurotic mother to the fine nuances of depicting the ups and downs of a startup enterprise and the wonder of seeing Melissa Rivers as Joan Rivers at cable TV’s QVC as I think she was. Joy has its wonders and I think its implied theme that belief and sacrifice come at the expense of one’s enjoyment is true. But in doing so it dims the audience’s enjoyment, too.