Joy (2015) * * *

Directed by:  David O. Russell

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, Elisabeth Rohm, Isabella Rossellini

Joy feels more like a dream than a biopic.     It is rare that I openly admire the set designs in a film, but they are unique in Joy.     They add to the atmosphere.     The story of inventor Joy Mangano (Lawrence), who invented the Miracle Mop (which I use today or at least a version of it) and became a fixture on QVC and HSN, is not one that screams to made into a movie.    But David O. Russell found value in it and brought along his strong cast from his previous films to bring it to life.

The cast from Lawrence to Rohm came along from Russell's previous outings Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.    Edgar Ramirez has not appeared in any previous Russell films, but is a welcome addition.     The film belongs to Lawrence, playing the underachiever with a heart of gold who one day creates the unique design for the "Miracle Mop".   She turns her father's body shop into a manufacturing plant and lands an audience with QVC head Neal Walker (Cooper) to create 50,000 units.     The capital is supplied by her father Rudy's (DeNiro) new wealthy girlfriend (Rossellini), to whom Joy falls further and further into debt even as the mop sales take off.  

Joy herself becomes a celebrity by selling her own products on QVC, which was unheard of but agreed to by Walker, who likes Joy and wants to see the order number rise on a digital readout next to the set.     However, the business world is cruel and Joy finds herself at odds with her family and her manufacturers who are squeezing the profit margin ever tighter.      Lawrence is never less than convincing as she ages twenty years in the film.     She is feisty, resourceful, and compassionate.    Who else would allow her ex-husband of two years to stay in her basement alongside her recently displaced father?     She is a mother of two with a depressed mother of her own who lies in bed watching soap operas all day.      Her ex-husband Tony (Ramirez) is not riding the gravy train, but acts as a caring confidante as Joy's business career booms.    He even has a few contacts of his own which help her land at QVC. 

This is the third film I've seen this December with lots of snow on the ground.    The Revenant and The Hateful Eight are the others.     The snow adds to the mystique of the proceedings.     Joy's house, Rudy's body shop, and the QVC headquarters all appear as islands onto themselves with no civilization around for miles.     Even Los Angeles and Dallas seem quaint and desolate.     Russell didn't spend a lot of money on sets, but yet this creates a hypnotizing, less distracting effect.     Russell's previous two films were more in love with characters and dialogue.    Joy is in love with one character (Joy) and its minimal number of sets and buildings.    

Joy is not as profound or peppered with memorable people as Silver Linings Playbook or American Hustle.     The characters other than Joy (except maybe for Tony) seem to have agendas of their own and keep their emotional distance.    Maybe that was the intent, as we discover later that even Joy's own family sued her for a larger piece of her empire.    In true Joy fashion, though, she still took care of her father, even as his greed got the better of him.