Joy - C

Jennifer Lawrence

Rated PG-13, 126 minutes

"Joy" is a rather joyless effort. There's no question that Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence is David O. Russell's ("Silver Linings Playbook") muse, and the two are at it again in the sluggish but charming biographical drama "Joy," about the travails of a real woman and fantastically successful entrepreneur who faced many challenges along her journey. Much like the real person this is based on, the well-acted "Joy" gets off to a very shaky start, and once it focuses on what made her successful, it works much better, though Russell doesn't seem to have confidence in Mangano's story, given how uneven the film is at times. The film follows upstate New Yorker Joy Mangano (Lawrence), a divorced mother of three children, through four generations as she builds her business empire after creating the Miracle Mop. Through considerable challenges both emotionally and financially, the mop becomes a bit of a miracle itself, saving Mangano and her investors from financial ruin. Directed and written by Russell, "Joy" is part crazy family drama and part story about living the American dream on your own terms, yet it works much letter as the latter than the former. The first 30 minutes of the film, which explores Mangano's children and early dreams, is annoying expository look at her family life, and doesn't mesh well with the rest of the film and with some of the most grating characters seen in recent memory; her reclusive mother (Victoria Tennant) is of no help, she is divorced but friendly with her ex (Edgar Ramirez) with whom she shares three children, her warm grandmother (Diane Ladd) tries to provide emotional stability and encouragement (who for some reason narrates the movie), while her Dad (Robert DeNiro) and his wealthy new girlfriend (Isabella Rosselini) eventually become investors in her new product, a mop that cleans with little mess and still be reused. Once "Joy" makes a right turn into developing and selling the mop on QVC, with the help of one of its executives (another of Russell's favorite actors, Bradley Cooper, charming but unnecessary), it has its best, most entertaining and most compelling moments, all grounded the engaging Lawrence, who's good but miscast here: she's too young to be playing a mid-30's Mangano. If Oscar voters continue to shed love on Lawrence, she'll likely get another Oscar nomination, though it's her weakest role in a Russell movie to date. "Joy" isn't a terrible film, but it's a disappointment considering the talent and filmmaker behind one of my favorite films, "Silver Linings Playbook."