Joy 2015

Sandy Cohen, Associated Press: Despite the convoluted family dynamics and less-than-successful use of the show-within-a-show trope, Lawrence makes Joy easy to believe and easy to root for, no matter what she's selling. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: [Lawrence gives] a wonderfully layered performance that carries the film through its rough spots and sometime dubious detours. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Mostly it's up to Lawrence to wring all the drama and pathos she can out of a battle over patent rights that pushes Joy to the brink of bankruptcy. No surprise that her mettle cleans up all the messiness in Joy. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine: In the end, Joy is more slender and inconsequential than Russell probably intends it to be-it wears its ideas rather than embodying them. But Lawrence keeps the channels of communication open, every minute, with the audience. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The mop is miraculous. David O. Russell's latest movie, not so much. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Rough even by Russell's standards, this grab bag of dropped plot points, visual metaphors, and theatrical cues looks like the underdrawing of a comic drama, only half covered in bright impasto strokes. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The script feels not half-finished, but maybe three-quarters. Lawrence does what she can to make up the missing 25 percent, but even she can't perform miracles. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The movie's a shambles, alternatingly agreeable and aggravating, held together by our interest in its heroine and by Lawrence's tremendously sympathetic performance. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: I wouldn't call this a complete dud, but it's the least engaging David O. Russell feature I've seen. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The script never jells; the comedy feels forced and mechanically boisterous, particularly in the crucial early passages. And in the final 30 minutes, it's a dangling mess. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's all about Joy overcoming obstacles on her way to the American Dream and Lawrence imbues her with strength and resolve. The result is joyous indeed. Read more

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: If only Russell trusted Mangano's true story. Instead, he's turned her life into a over-staged mess of awkward exposition, contrived dialogue, and characters so willfully unreal they feel acrylic. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: The splendidly dextrous cast ensures that this goofy success story, which could just easily be titled American Hustle 2, keeps firing on all cylinders in the manner of the writer-director's previous few outings. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Lawrence ... thrives here, but even her skill and determination can't stabilize a film that goes off in any number of directions and rarely feels confident about the kind of story it wants to be telling. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: While Joy isn't a smooth ride, it is an interesting one, taking us to some unexpected places while giving us an entertaining portrait of a female entrepreneur. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Russell draws his characters as broadly as those soap opera stick figures he's so eager to mock, and though Joy at least tries to break the standard biopic formula, it's only partially successful at reconstructing an interesting life. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Fact and fiction mix with uneven but entertaining results in the latest from the "Silver Linings Playbook" crew. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Painful personal overtones resonate in David O. Russell's boisterous comic view-based on a true story-of an entrepreneur's conflict-riddled rise to success. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: To me, "Joy" ... played more like pandering - creating a role-model "survivor" rather than a truly whole and complicated person, elevating one character only by tearing down everyone else. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: The movie lurches from event to event, and tone to tone, without articulating a reason to exist. Read more

Gersh Kuntzman, New York Daily News: The story is ultimately empty because nothing is at stake. A woman invented a mop. She made millions with it. She became a Home Shopping Network star. Is this all there is? Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: If "Joy" seems to move toward a foreordained conclusion, it zigzags and covers its tracks along the way, sending its heroine on a roller-coaster ride of raised hopes and brutal disappointments and playing tricks with the audience's expectations. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Joy's entry into the world of entrepreneurship has the crazy trajectory of a rocket gone haywire, and Russell's movie is kind of haywire, too. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Joy can be viewed as a modern day rags-to-riches fairytale. It's Cinderella without the prince. In a way, that's part of the film's charm. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: There's no teeth in Russell's bite this time. His admiration for Joy has blurred his vision Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Russell is almost totally uninterested in the story of how Joy Mangano explored a bizarre and unknown new business model and became its first self-made tycoon, and as a result we aren't interested either. Read more

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader: It's clear that the point here isn't people, it's payoff, emotional and otherwise. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Lawrence is a joy, but the movie, sadly, isn't. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Lawrence remains a sympathetic focus throughout, and "Joy" never completely loses its way. But it almost does, and it never quite arrives. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Joy the movie never cohered, for me, into a story with forward motion. The minute the film begins to find its footing in one tonal register, it switches to another ... Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: As we follow Joy's frustrating journey, the dependably wonderful Lawrence delivers each scene like a champ. She portrays every feeling written into the script - and a lot more - with dramatic intelligence and force. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: Perhaps people who make gazillions selling housewares on The Shopping Channel deserve to be honoured; if they do, Joy is not a fitting tribute to Mangano - nor to the mop. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Joy is a fun but untidy muddle, a mess that even the self-wringing mop of its central metaphor can't easily clean up. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: It's the kind of movie where it means nothing that our heroine hits rock bottom, because she fixes everything in the very next scene. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: A film with one foot in daytime TV and the other in 'Goodfellas'. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: David O. Russell brings his Joy to the world with a wonky sense of humour and the genius of young actress Jennifer Lawrence. Read more

Brian Truitt, USA Today: There's a Miracle Mop at the heart of Joy, though the movie is such a mess that even it would have a hard time cleaning up. Read more

Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly: Two years after Jennifer Lawrence appeared in David O. Russell's American Hustle, she gets to show some. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: So much of Joy ... seems provisional, a clumsy first-draft attempt at making an unconventional movie about a woman who earned millions from the most pedestrian of objects. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Joy finds its rhythm when the desperate Joy becomes the on-air salesperson for her own invention, managing to exploit the brand of capitalism that previously held her back - and loses it shortly thereafter ... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Even Lawrence, in the end, is a letdown. As entertaining and committed as she is - and she's easily the best thing about "Joy" - the actress ultimately can't sell a souffle that's half baked. Read more