Joy (2015)

April 23, 2016 1:39 PM

Joy is the story of the title character, who rose to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business dynasty.
posted by ellieBOA (8 comments total)

I tried to like this movie, really I did; unfortunately the lead character (Joy) was so self-righteous, and all others were various combinations of nutty incompetency/hatred for Joy & her obvious moral superiority that I found myself checking my watch: is it almost over or should I just walk out now? The character came across as a cross between believing she is the only person on earth with True Vision, and someone who walks over other people without a qualm.

And it didn't help when I read an article about the real Joy: she's even less likable than the movie version.
posted by easily confused at 3:36 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I always like J.Law, but it was a weird movie. Like:
(a) Yes, J.Law can play the personality of someone who's ten years older than herself, but her young face is kinda distracting from that.
(b) What the fuck was with her father's girlfriend's questions?
(c) Why was all of her family jerks most of the time?
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:58 PM on April 23, 2016

I can't say anything about this movie because I haven't seen it and I don't plan to. But that's what I wanted to bring up... how atrocious the marketing for this film was. Not only do I have no idea what kind of movie it is after seeing multiple trailers, interviews, and reading about Joy Mangano, but they seemed to do everything they could to make me not want to watch it.

I love Lawrence. I love Cooper. I love them together. I even love David O. Russell. That's not enough to compel me to watch this.
posted by 2ht at 2:56 PM on April 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yep, the first trailers for this movie left me completely mystified what it was even about. From the clips it looks like JL chews up and spits out a lot of scenery, but I'll probably wait and see it on Netflix.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:01 PM on April 24, 2016

When I first saw the trailers I figured it was going to be awesome; then I found out it was billed as a comedy (?) and I thought, 'WTF, this can't possibly be very good as a comedy,' and it turns out I'm right, I think.

I still thought it was okay, mainly because of Jennifer Lawrence's performance, which was first-rate.

One complaint, I guess, is that Joy was effectively the same person she was at the beginning of the film as she was at the end --tough, resourceful, and committed to doing whatever it took to take care of her family, even those members of it who didn't deserve it. We did see her become more and more successful over the course of the film, but I couldn't really find it that engaging, because from my point of view things were so static.
posted by MoonOrb at 6:25 PM on April 24, 2016

This movie had a bizarre production path, the original script was a biopic comedic drama about a woman starting her own business and the iUpsand down of that. Rashida Jones was set to star -- then David O Williams got his hands on it and added a whole bunch of WRF, soap opera interludes, completely new characters and it became a complete mess.

Also apparently there's a speech putting David O. Selznick's relationship with Jennifer Jones in a POSITIVE light, not like a married woman who was coerced into sleeping with her boss who was obsessed with her and made movies about how obsessed he was with her, and it was ...uhhh I think I know way way too much about you and JLaw now Mr. Russel
posted by The Whelk at 5:16 AM on April 26, 2016

how atrocious the marketing for this film was

There seems to be a Hollywood contingent that has complete faith in marketing that is nothing more than hey you all saw their award winning movie last year and liked it, see this one too!
posted by phearlez at 1:34 PM on April 29, 2016

The biggest disappointment for me was the first selling scene, where Joy gets her shot in front of a live QVC audience. It felt so restrained, so boxed in - when suddenly, fifteen seconds after her BFF calls in and starts her spiel, they're up to 25,000 units sold? What? At least with the Joan Rivers jewelry scene there was buildup, suspense, here there was totally unearned (acting-wise) success.

The second-biggest disappointment was the California hotel scene, where Rudy and Trudy berate Joy into signing the bankruptcy papers. Again, unearned sadness, undermined by a terrible script and lack of believable family dynamic, something that could have been rescued if it had actually been funny.

So scratch that first paragraph: my biggest disappointment was that this movie wasn't funny, and because it wasn't funny all the other things it tried to be just rang hollow. Pretty bland fare overall.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:56 PM on April 5, 2018