There is more than a touch of irony that the heroine of David O Russell’s new movie is called Joy as we can see right from the off, that her rather miserable life is far from joyous. It is based on the true life story of Joy Mangano a divorced Long Island single mother who invented the Miracle Mop in 1990 which not only transformed her very unhappy and humble life, but also evidently lightened the loads of hundred of thousands of housewives who bought her magical invention.
The movie flashes forward to when Joy was now an adult and struggling to keep the household afloat which now doesn’t just compose of her mother and Mimi but also her own two small children plus Tony her ex-husband (Édgar Ramírez) who is now living in the basement. Joy is holding down a full-time job as an airline customer service rep which she loses at the same time her homeless father turns up on her doorstep having being dumped by his latest girlfriend.
Her Eureka moment that leads to her inventing the mop is when she cuts her hands mopping up a spilt wine glass on her father’s new girlfriend’s yacht. Trudy the girlfriend (a blissfully funny Isabella Rossellini) is a wealthy widow so she is soon tapped up to finance the production of the mop who’s development is anything but smooth. It isn’t until a desperate Joy gets the mop into the hands of Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) the CEO of the brand new QVC shopping network that things really do take off, but that’s even after a nail biting false start when it looks like the mop may be a complete flop after all. However by now nothing will stop a transformed Joy even it means having to get tough when a shady deal with someone claiming to own a similar patent threatens to bankrupt them all.
The movie reunites Russell for the third time with Lawrence, Cooper and De Niro but this time he fails to re-create the magic of either “American Hustle” and “Silver Linings Playbook” which racked up 18 Oscar Nominations between them (winning one for Lawrence). Lawrence does very well in this biopic which in itself is quite extraordinary in the fact that it is rare one about a woman, but it is even difficult for her to shine throughout the 2 hour running time with such a patchy script to work from.
There are some real moments of sheer joy in the piece ….. De Niro is gloriously funny as the outspoken ….. but there are parts that literally drag. For example Cooper’s small but crucial role seems to be a blatant piece of PR for the whole TV Shopping Network concept as he overloads Joy, and us, with unnecessary minute detail on how it all works.
The attention to all the period details pays off handsomely as it sets the perfect tone in its Long Island setting and also in the QVC Studios (look out for Melissa Rivers playing her mother Joan) but that still doesn’t make up for fact that we may be convinced that the mop is indeed a miracle (!) but the story about it’s birth is not.
