Joy

While I’m no great fan of David O’ Russell, I have enjoyed his movies in the past. I think they’re frequently sloppy, but highly entertaining, mish-mashes of broad comedy and theatrical melodrama like The Fighter, and sometimes they’re just fun excuses to watch movie stars doing questionable activities like American Hustle. But I’ve noticed ever since he first garnered some Oscar love, that his work has increasingly become more erratic and half-baked. Joy is probably the most half-baked and ridiculous film of his to come out yet.

Split into two different chunks, the first half is a quirky family comedy-drama, leaning harder on the comedic equation, told with narration from Diane Ladd’s grandmother character, and a reoccurring soap opera interlude. The second half drops both of these ideas, and many others along the way, to focus heavy on the dramatics involved in inventing a mop, business start-ups, and shady deals. The swing into the second half is abrupt, and the dropped comedic elements turn Joy into a quickly deflating balloon.

A good performance could salvage it, but Jennifer Lawrence is wildly miscast in the leading role. The role requires her to transition and age over a twenty year period, and she’s far too young for much of the story. Her acting frequently feels surface-level, play acting at bitter divorcee with two young children. I generally think that Lawrence is a talented actress, her work in Winter’s Bone is phenomenal, but Russell insists on placing her in roles that don’t align with her age or experience. It could be avoided like it was in American Hustle by giving her plenty of large-scale comedic moments to embrace her inner screwball goddess, but that’s not here.

This doesn’t mean that Lawrence doesn’t kill in a few select scenes, but this same problem creeps into the supporting players. Russell is gifted in assembling a top-notch ensemble, but he doesn’t given enough attention to many of them this time around. Virginia Madsen is wasted as a soap opera addicted reclusive, Diane Ladd disappears as Joy’s inspirational grandmother, Elisabeth Röhm plays a half-baked antagonistic half-sister, and Dascha Polanco as the best friend is given little to do but be window dressing in various scenes. The only supporting players that make any impression are two Russell mainstays and two newcomers. Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper continue to impress in Russell’s ever-shifting demands on them as actors from project to project, and Isabella Rossellini brings her European enigma and ethereal beauty in an important juicy role, while Édgar Ramírez delivers sarcastic one-liners as Joy’s best friend/ex-husband.

Yet it doesn’t add up to much of anything. The movie is largely ridiculous, as the first half plays like a blue collar sitcom done in the style of John Cassavetes, and much of it just doesn’t work. Interpersonal relationships are ill-defined, and the dramatics they’re supposed to cause are uninteresting as a result. Too much of Joy can’t decide on which mode or style it wants to operate in. Is this personal film-making, or is this commercial prestige picture shorthand? It’s both, and while it never stops moving for a second, much of it will be leaving you questioning its choices instead of enjoying the marks it hits.