Joy (2015)

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro

Director: David O. Russell

Length: 124 mins

Genre: Drama, Comedy

UK Release Date: 1st January 2016

Rating: 12A

IMDB Summary: Joy is the story of the title character, who rose to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business dynasty.

My Rating: ★★1/2

I went into this film not knowing a lot about it, I’m still not sure whether this was a good or bad thing. The descriptions of this movie on IMDB and Letterboxd are not particularly detailed but the trailer looked fairly exciting. In addition, the cast looked great: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro have been a successful film trio in other movies.

If I’m totally honest, I spent about 85% of this film feeling quite bored and not really sure whether I was supposed to be finding the film funny. I really didn’t, so it pains me a little to write that it is a comedy under the genre. Maybe if I had, I would have upped my own rating, but I just felt completely emotionless at the end of the film. It had no effect on me whatsoever. I didn’t feel the need to talk about it after and that’s usually a sign that I haven’t enjoyed the movie.

There’s no doubting that Lawrence is an excellent actress and she showed her talent in this movie, but for me, the storyline just wasn’t enough. I expected so much more than somebody selling a mop.

I’d be really interested to see what other people thought of this film. Here’s the trailer.

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