Joy

Joy (2015) is about a woman trying to sell her own invention, based on a real person. Joy Mangano is raising two children alone, working for an airline, and her house is full of relatives: her mother watches television in bed, her father lives in the basement, and so does her ex husband. One day, gathering broken glass, she cuts her hand and designs a mop that does not have to be wrung out by hand. The real subject is not the invention but selling it. She has to solve the patent, the manufacturing, the tooling, the debt and the distribution alone. Eventually she goes to a television shopping channel and offers to present the product herself. The best section is that broadcast: a woman who has never been in front of a camera, who knows the product only because she uses it. Her family obstructs her from beginning to end and the film looks at that harshly; nobody believes her and all of them expect money. It is David O. Russell's third film with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. Lawrence was nominated for best actress. The grandmother is used as narrator, and that choice becomes strange in the final section. The film alters the real Joy Mangano's life considerably and most of the names are invented. The first half hour is scattered and the soap opera passages do not help. It runs 124 minutes. Good for: true stories, building a business, and performance. Less good for: the tone is uneven, the family scenes are tiring, and the ending is too neat.