Joy Movie Review starring Jennifer Lawrence

Hey guys and girls, 

First of all I hope everyone had a lovely winter break and happy new year to you all. I'm excited to be writing my new post of 2016. Here goes for my first post of the new year. Today I have decided to write a review on the new film Joy written and directed by David O Russell. 

The film is set in late 1980s to early 1990s and follows the story of a divorced woman named Joy who rises to fame and becomes a self made millionaire after inventing a mop that would change everything. Joy is a powerful woman and the film takes us through all the failures and struggles of her life before she makes her fortune. The film has a very impressive cast with actress Jennifer Lawrence playing the lead role of Joy, Robert De Niro playing the role of Rudy, Isabella Rossellini as Trudy and Bradley Cooper as Neil Walker. 

I went to watch this film in Novato, California for a family night out with my aunt, uncle, cousin and my mom who is visiting from London. After coming out of the theatre it was interesting to hear varied options on the movie. When writing this review I am basing this completely on my own opinion. I would say there are good and bad things about this film and I will be commenting both on the acting and the writing. 

I will start my review by mentioning the negatives first. The film took off to a very slow start and I felt that there were too many scenes that dragged on. I felt that this was pointless at times, which resulted in loss of interest for the audience. The second point i want to make is my disappointment in the character of Rudy, played by Robert De Niro. I have always been a huge fan of De Niro and I think he is a brilliant actor, however, in this case I just didn't feel he was right for the character. It seemed like he was cast mainly for his presence and popularity rather than for the characters purpose. Being an actress myself I'm all for not being typecast and playing a variety of different characters, which is actually something I feel very strongly about but, I just felt in this case De Niro just did not do the character any justice. I was also not very impressed with the performance of Isabella Rossellini. Again I am a huge fan of Rossellini and also being Italian myself and an actress I look up to her and had high expectations, which she unfortunately did not meet. I thought her performance was a little dry and she played her snobbish upper class character very stereotypically. I think both De Niro and Rossellini are brilliant actors but in the interest of Joy they were wrongly cast. 

Now that I've expressed my dislikes of the film I will move on to the positives. I thought Jennifer Lawrence gave an amazing and real performance. As an actress I find it difficult to watch a film without analyzing every little detail of the actors performance. The one thing I noticed about Lawrence's performance, which I find she does in every one of her films is how she specifies everything. She is never general and plays every character as real as she can. Every facial expression told a story and I knew what she was thinking even if she didn't say it. The character of Joy was powerful and represented all strong women. She is independent, looking after family, sharing her home with her ex husband, children, father, mother and Mimi (grandmother). She is constantly doing things for other people, putting her dreams on hold to look after them. From the minute that joy was introduced to the audience I knew that I would be able to connect with her. Following her story gave me pleasure, it made me think back on my own life and reminded me about things I'd forgotten. There is a powerful message behind this film and there is something that everyone can relate to. Joy shows the audience that in life we will fail more times than we succeeds and people will always tell you to give up. Joy's parents didn't think she could succeed and her Mimi (grandmother) told her never to give up on her dreams. Joy went on a roller coaster of disasters and set backs throughout the film but she never gave up, no matter how hard it was and it payed off in the end. The thing I enjoyed most about Joy is her compassion for others. Even when her father didn't believe in her and her half sister Peggy let her jealously of Joy become the better of her, she still loved them unconditionally and took care of them. She easily forgave people and learnt to put their needs above her own. She never changed her personality when she made her fortune and she showed me that you hold more power by being kind and compassionate, you don't need to stoop to the low levels of others to gain power. 

Although I place the some of the directing under negative, due to the scenes at the beginning, I would also say that Russell definitely brought it back after the very slow start.

Overall I felt the positive aspects of the film override the negatives. I walked out the theater with a sense of clarity and power to my own life and for me that made it worth it. 

With everything combined, directing, acting, storyline I would give this film a big 4 stars.  

(Picture Source: www.hollywoodnews.com, 2015)