Joy is based on someones real life but this is not their true story. Joy is a semi-biographical story of a divorced mother with two children in the early 1990s who became a multi-millionaire by inventing the Miracle Mop among other inventions. Joy’s full name is Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence) and in this film she is living the “mother” of set ups; Joy and her mother, Terry (Virginia Madsen) live on the main floor, Joy’s ex-husband, Tony Miranne (Édgar Ramírez) live in the basement, the children and her grandmother, Mimi (Diane Ladd) live up stairs. To top things off, her father’s 3rd wife Cindy (Drena De Niro) has just returned him to Joy, for good, so now he’s living with Joy’s ex-husband in the basement. I should add that Joy’s husband and father, Rudy Mangano (Robert De Niro) hate each other. Joy also has a half sister Peggy, (Elisabeth Röhm) who is very close to her father but are miles apart from her sister Joy. Peggy uses every chance she gets to exploit Joy, needless to say, they do not get along. Despite Joy’s crazy life, she manages to stay focused on her dream of becoming an entrepreneur. While sailing on her father’s newest girlfriend Trudy’s (Isabella Rossellini) yacht, Joy gets an idea when she cuts her hand cleaning up a spill from a broken glass of wine. This incident leads to Trudy becoming Joy’s financier, which eventually leads to Joy meeting Neil Walker, (Bradley Cooper) an executive at QVC. Dascha Polanco plays Jackie, Joy’s best friend who was instrumental in motivating Joy throughout the entire process. There are many, many players in this movie and even thought it seems as though I’ve given the whole story away, I’m far from it. We all know of the Miracle Mop because most of us purchased one, at least I did. Many more characters show up and many more twist and turns happen.
I think you’ll enjoy Joy. It’s entertaining, well acted and funny. I was delighted to see Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence back together again. They did a terrific job acting out this film. This is a sign of true acting when the same actors and actresses can get together and play entirely different roles and still be convincing.
[Joy is nominated for Best Actress]
CAROL's WORLDS 