Movie Review: "Joy"

Joy (2015)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                David O. Russell
Writer                                   David O. Russell
Music                                    David Campbell, West Dylan Thorsden
Cinematography                 Linus Sandgren

Jennifer Lawrence             Joy
Robert DeNiro                   Rudy, Dad
Bradley Cooper                 Neil Walker
Edgar Ramirez                   Tony, ex-husband
Diane Ladd                         Mimi, Nana
Virginia Madsen                Terry, Mom
Isabella Rosselini              Trudy, “step-mom”
Dascha Polanco                 Jackie, friend
Elizabeth Rohm                 Peggy, sister
Susan Lucci                         Danica, soap opera star
Melissa Rivers                    Joan Rivers
Jimmy Jean-Louis              Toussaint

 

2015’s “Joy” is a fictionalized account of the rise to wealth and power experienced by Joy Mangano during the 90’s. She was then a young divorced mother of three working as an airline reservations manager. Her invention of a self-wringing mop, the “Miracle Mop” started Mangano on her road to becoming a self-made millionaire. However, it was not just her inventiveness (she has over 100 patents), but it also her drive, business acumen, and association with QVC and later HSN that enabled her transition from suburban Long Island to her own mansion and business empire. In writer/director David O. Russell’s hands, “Joy” becomes a kind of modern Cinderella story complete with evil half-sister, evil quasi-step mother, and a heroine that begins her rags to riches transition with a mop. It is unfortunately and despite a scintillating performance by Jennifer Lawrence as Joy, an inconsistently told story that weaves from a “Fargo-like” surrealistic brand of humor to straight-forward drama.

“Joy” begins with a soap opera dialog in the background. This melodrama starring soap opera veterans Susan Lucci and Donna Mills will make several appearances during the first half of “Joy” with its over-the-top version of reality providing their own version of a Greek Chorus to Joy’s daily travails. And travails, she does have. Her mother, Terry (Virginia Madsen) lives in her bed watching the aforementioned soap opera doing her best to hide from the world and its presumably too harsh reality. Joy’s daughter, Christy will join her Nana in bed providing an example of childish acceptance and love. Joy’s own Nana is Mimi (Diane Ladd) and like Christy will play the role of one of the few people in this movie (other than Joy and her life-long friend, Jackie played by Dascha Polanco) with her feet firmly on the ground. Unfortunately, Russell has decided in his script to augment the soap opera counterpoint to the primary narrative with actual narrator, Mimi. Remarkably, Russell does not find even this sufficient as he will bring in an endless series of pop tunes that were chosen to also highlight some aspect of Joy’s story – the music is truly unrelenting in its intrusiveness, no matter how carefully chosen to complement the primary story.

As odd as Terry is a mother, Joy has an even stranger individual as a father, Rudy (Robert De Niro). De Niro in his all too frequent role as movie clown plays Rudy as a seriously self-centered, failed father to Joy. He will do his best along with Joy’s sister, Peggy (Elizabeth Rohm) to step on as many of Joy’s dreams as they possibly can. Rudy will do it with a false sense of apology as he tries to take the “blame” for deceiving Joy into believing too firmly in her dreams, even as he makes it plain, that it is Joy’s own inadequacies that lead into the various failures she encounters on her way to success. Peggy adopts a more familiar role, that of jealous and competitive sister to Joy. Peggy really wants Rudy’s approval and see’s Joy’s early successes at invention as a direct challenge to her own sense of self-worth.

We first meet Rudy in manic over-drive as he argues with Terry and manages to destroy a shelf full of crockery in the process. Following this fight, which Joy had watched helpless to stop, and as her own daughter cringed in the kitchen from the pseudo violence, Joy takes Rudy back in to her home and ensconces him in the basement where Joy’s own ex-husband, Tony (Edgar Ramirez) lives – even though he and Joy are two years divorced. Needless to say Rudy and Tony hate each other; something they make immediately clear to the viewer. All of these characters (with the exception of Mimi and Christy) are cardboard cartoons of characters living out cartoon versions of sitcom comedy in Joy’s house.

Russell’s script seems to intend to create a comic atmosphere of a very put-upon Joy. She is the only working member of the household besides her father (he owns a very loud auto-body repair shop located right next to an even louder gun range). She cleans up after everyone, most notably her mother who consistently clogs up the plumbing with her hair which leads to plumbing problems. Into this maelstrom will enter two more characters: Toussaint (Jimmy Jean-Louis), a Haitian plumber come to fix Terry’s plumbing and win her heart; and Trudy (Isabelle Rosselini) come to become Rudy’s fourth wife and Joy’s reluctant investor.

Joy will need an investor. She will be inspired following one more mess she must clean up to invent her miracle mop. Trudy a well-off widow will supply some of the cash along with a second mortgage on Joy’s home to get the Miracle-Mop into manufacture along with covering some unforeseen legal problems. The legal problems will come from the company building Joy’s mop hardware and will provide yet one more villain/obstacle for Joy to overcome. However, before that last hurdle must be jumped, Joy needs to find a customer base for her mops. Into the story comes Bradley Cooper as Neil Walker, head of sales at QVC.

In order for Joy to meet Neil, to get her mop on QVC, and to be successful with her mop on QVC, Joy will again have to prove her stubborn desire to succeed. She will run the corporate gauntlet at QVC (with some help from the suddenly useful Tony) to meet Neil, convince him of the mop’s value, and then of her own value as a salesperson. And here is where Joy as an individual really shines. She is not just an inventor, she is also a consummate television salesperson/personality; the movie version amps up her success in terms of initial sales of her mops. However, the reality of Joy Mangano’s actual salesmanship is astonishing: she currently routinely sells over $1M per hour on HSN, and is in fact HSN’s most successful salesperson with annual sales over $150M per year.

The issue with “Joy” is neither Lawrence’s performance nor Joy as a character; it is not the camera-work which at times is spot on; the problem is the writing/directing efforts of Russell. The movie feels like such a missed opportunity. Joy Mangano’s story is a compelling and inspiring one. Why Russell lost control over the movie’s pacing and tone in the first half is a mystery. By the time Joy meets Neil, the movie finally seems to gain its footing. The film moves from the wild swings of comedy, simple drama and surrealism (e.g. as Joy dreams at one point, she enters into the soap opera as a character),  and far too many intrusions from Nana as narrator and the various pop tunes into a serious drama about a woman determined to get her mop made and sold. There are nice touches of realism as Joy moves through an entire day with a large food stain on her blouse, nice touches of sentimentality as we see young Joy working on her early inventions, and serious scenes where Joy’s great promise as a teen was loss due to one more pull on her from her self-centered parents (their divorce in this case, which required Joy to give up college in order to come home and run the household). And especially in the movie’s second half there is great camera-work as the camera comes close with Joy’s face framed by the background and the viewer gets an up close view of Lawrence’s considerable acting talents via her subtle facial movements. There is even a fairly cool foreshadowing of Joy coming out of her cocoon of 17 years (just like the cicada’s in the book she read to Christy) in order to leave the airline and to become a business-woman. Why the crazy tone and pace changes? They simply detract from the other fine elements in this story.

Bottom-line, “Joy” is worth seeing for Lawrence’s acting alone, but also to learn little about the real Joy. Her story is inspiring and worth seeing, even in a flawed vehicle like “Joy” the movie. I recommend this movie but with reservations.

Movie Review: American Sniper

American Sniper (2014)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director                              Clint Eastwood
Writer                                 Jason Hall
Cinematography              Tom Stern

Editing                                 Joel Cox, Gary Roach
Bradley Cooper                 Chris Kyle
Sienna Miller                     Taya Kyle

 

Clint Eastwood has a style to his directing that condenses a movie and its themes down to the rock hard basics. In one of the best American movies made in the past 25 years, “Unforgiven” (1992), Eastwood developed this style to create an artistic vision of what life as a gunslinger in the Old West was really like. Eastwood and his writer, David Peoples described the metaphorical ending of the “Old West” even as they told the actual last days of Billy Munny’s career as a hired gun. By combining the cinematic genius of Jack Green with action sequences that had every unnecessary flourish squeezed out, Eastwood was able to create a lasting vision of a violent time that was coming to a close. With the less inspired “American Sniper”, Eastwood tells the story of US Navy Seal, Chris Kyle. Like “Unforgiven”, Eastwood again seeks to explore a violent world; this particular world was the war time scenes that the real Chris Kyle moved through during the second Iraq war, but also the war within for many returning vets. And again as in “Unforgiven”, Eastwood drills down to the essentials: should I shoot this target, this man, this woman, this child and save my buddies, risk Leavenworth prison if I am wrong, or should I let this man/woman/child go on living? Tough questions faced the real Chris Kyle and Eastwood does an excellent job of illustrating them in “American Sniper”.

We meet Chris in Iraq on his first tour; his first assignment in the field as a sniper. He lies upon a bed like surface and stares down into the street below. A small contingent of Marines is moving along the street; Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is there to provide cover. As he watches, a woman and a young boy come into the street, perhaps 200 meters away from the Marines. Through his scope, Chris can see the woman pass a grenade to the boy. Chris seeks direction by radio from his commander. He is given the okay to use his discretion. As he ponders the situation, his colleague sitting to Chris’ side warns Chris that should he err with regards to the intent of the boy and his presumed mother, Chris will go to prison for murder. This scene does not stand alone in “American Sniper”. There are other similar situations where Chris must make quick decisions; decisions where he may take a life to save a life, or decline to do so, but place the lives of his comrades in jeopardy. Eastwood’s decision to place this conundrum right at the beginning of the movie is brilliant. It sums up the entire movie; it provides Cooper with one of his best opportunities to act by showing the face of a man that must make such a decision. Eastwood does not let the audience know right away how Chris will act. Instead, he has the movie jump back to earlier points in Chris’ life: a hunt with his father, an argument with an unfaithful girl-friend, his decision to join and train with the SEALs. As we parse through Chris’ younger years, we are also introduced to the woman he will marry: Taya (Sienna Miller). Cooper and Miller both provide multiple examples of fine acting, though for the most part, the role of Chris is fairly mono-tonic. What variations in his expressed emotions there are, are generally confined to scenes like the one referred to above. Despite Chris evidently being a better shot when he shoots at something alive (according to Chris during his SEAL training), he still bears the weight of his actions. When he is asked this very question on at least two occasions in the movie, he always passes the effects off by saying he is devoted to saving his comrades and actually feels remorse only at not saving more of them. Based on Cooper’s portrayal, I would agree that he feels remorse at the loss of his teammates, but I would demur on whether taking another life, had no effect on him.

The movie’s dramatic tension does come from a familiar place. Chris becomes “infected” with his passion to save every Marine he is assigned to protect; that he cannot do so has a big impact on him. However, the biggest effect is on his stateside personality and his ability, his inability to re-adapt to a non-war time environment. When he returns home, he is distant and distracted. He pays too little attention to his wife or children. He jumps at any sudden sound and comes close to beating his dog for its rough behavior with Chris’s son. Chris makes four trips to Iraq. He takes the lives of 160 combatants and he saves the lives of many of the Marines he is there to provide cover for; but he does not save them all. After losing one teammate and attending his funeral, he is repulsed by statements read by the dead SEAL’s mother but accorded to the deceased SEAL about whether or not their efforts in the war had value. Chris states that such feelings were ultimately what led to his friend’s death, but it is clear in Chris’ eyes that he too and despite his continual statements to the contrary, is beginning to wonder about whether the American lives lost should have been lost in such a war.

The movie is constructed of many quick cut edited scenes. I did not measure them exactly, but you get the sense that each scene almost never takes more than about 30 seconds. The movie is made of these scenes, some from each of Chris’ four tours in Iraq (adding up to about 1000 days total), plus the scenes at home where he struggles to disconnect from the war and to reconnect to Taya. Much of the acting by Miller consists of her valiantly trying to help Chris; shortly after the conclusion and with the help of a psychiatrist, Taya does help Chris to finally find a place at home. The real life irony of how he did so, by helping other vets with PTSD, and how one such very troubled vet eventually takes Chris’ life is an individual tragedy that in many ways sums up the deep downside of this ultimately pointless war. That Chris was able to help many of his comrades is poignantly shown by their turnout along the roadway, upon which a hearse carried his body to its final resting place. These scenes along the roadway to the cemetery are played during the closing credits and were for me easily the most heartbreaking.

Eastwood has created a very good movie that examines the complexities of war but has done so in his characteristic minimalist manner. He examines on several occasions the extremely tough choices that must be made in split seconds by soldiers and Marines in a war zone. He shows the lasting corrosive effects on the minds and souls of those warriors when they return home. What I found lacking in the movie is in relation to the Eastwood style of condensed scenes. I found them too spare, too focused on the dissociation that so many of those warriors must adopt to get through the hell of war. From my point of view, I struggled much more with this movie than with “Unforgiven” to feel as I assumed the protagonist in this movie must have felt. I understand the sense that such a man must at times take on the role of a robot, and while it may have been the true depiction of Chris the man; it took some of the heart out of the movie based on that very same man. “American Sniper” is very good movie, but unlike “Unforgiven” it is not a great movie.

 

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Four Stars out of Five

PG13

Peter Quill: Chris Pratt

Gamora: Zoe Saldana

Drax: Dave Bautista

Goot (voice): Vin Diesel

Rocket (voice): Bradley Cooper

Director: James Gunn

Writer: James Gunn and Nicole Perlman

Art Direction:  Ray Chan

Is it really necessary to review a comic book-movie? One could argue "yes" based on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy; a series of movies that truly were works of cinematic art and fine acting. But that is not really the argument in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG). Right from the beginning as the characters are introduced in the movie, one quickly surmises that movies with talking trees (whose entire vocabulary consists of “I am Groot”) to wise-cracking raccoons to a sound track from the eighties (on a Sony Walkman, no less) are not aiming for Best Picture nominations.

However, I must say, this movie was thoroughly enjoyable. The wise cracking raccoon (voiced by Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper – nominated for American Sniper) and the equally wisecracking hero, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) had me laughing through most of the movie. Even the dour, incapable of not taking-any-comment literally Drax (WWE wrestler Dave Bautista) was able to drop a few one-liners into the dialog. The dialog is often funny, and the final scenes of destruction (apparently obligatory in comic book movies) were oddly anti-septic, and while not funny, not engaging in any real way such that the mood of the movie was not diverted.

The movie begins with an odd little side story involving young Peter Quill at his dying mother’s bedside. Following her passing he races outside to be captured by a spaceship (yes, I get this makes little sense). The movie jumps forward 26 years and we watch the now-grown Peter as he makes like Indiana Jones and many other pulp fiction heroes. He has obtained an object that his employer and several other malefactors want to possess. Thus begins a ridiculous story of bad guys and good guys chasing after the object, Peter, and his new gang of friends. Besides the aforementioned raccoon, talking tree and Drax, there is also a green-skinned Gamora played by the previously blue-skinned (Avatar) Zoe Saldana. There’s not that much point in detailing the story line or the various plot holes in it. But it is fun to watch for the various big money actors in the movie: Glenn Close as the leader of the Good Guys (Xandarians), John C Reilly (one of Glenn’s soldiers), Josh Brolin (a really bad guy named Thanos), and Benicio del Toro (The Collector).

The acting and the story line aren’t the story. The art work and CGI are often astounding. I am amazed at what passes for de riguer CGI in 2014. Of course, talking trees and raccoons are ridiculous, but they are done so well in this movie that you completely forget how ridiculous a concept they are and just accept them as characters (and in the case of the raccoon, a pretty funny character). Bottom-line, if you like space operas and have a sense of humor that embraces the sarcastic, and if the ridiculous amuses rather than offends you, then GOTG might be your movie.

American Hustle

American Hustle

2013

Drama/Comedy

4.5 stars out of 5

David O. Russell’s “America Hustle” tells an oddly varied story of the Abscam corruption case from the late 1970’s/early 1980’s wherein six US Representatives and one US Senator were convicted of corruption. The story focuses on a fictionalized version of the con-man at the center of the FBI sting (Melvin Weinberg), a fictionalized FBI agent, and two (hopefully) fictionalized women in the con-man’s life.

The con-man, Irving Rosenfeld is played by Christian Bale as an overweight, comb-over loser/anti-hero. Bale walks a tightrope as he shows us Irving succeeding at his various cons but in complete thrall to his Jersey Shore-esque wife Rosalyn played by Jennifer Lawrence. Since it seems that everything that Lawrence does these days, she does at a performance level so far above almost all of her peers, it is no surprise to watch her as she portrays a beautiful but empty-header schemer with complete believability. Irving is smart enough to run or sense a scam on every occasion, while Rosalyn has so fooled herself that she is the smartest person in the room, she inevitably misunderstands almost every scene she is in – sometimes to comic effect, sometimes to disastrous effect.

In stark contrast, the other woman in Irving’s life is Sydney Prosser played exceptionally well (revealingly so) by Amy Adams. This ex-stripper from Albuquerque meets Irving at a pool party and its love/crime at first sight. Sydney via her oddly chosen alternate persona of Lady Edith joins Irving in his scams and ups the ante considerably in their defiance of the law. Eventually, they are trapped by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) who forces them into helping him with the Abscam sting mentioned above.

The story arc is highly entertaining and waxes and wanes between comedy and drama; it even includes a chilling portrayal of an uncredited cameo by Robert DeNiro as a Florida mobster. But in truth, this is a story of excess during a time of excess in America perpetrated by people lacking in any excesses (wealth, taste, vision) of their own. The quartet of Irving, Rosalyn, Sydney and Richie consist of people that really aren’t fooling anyone, even themselves; they are just faking it. They each are yearning for something more from life (though Rosalyn is too dense to even know what it might be), and each is willing to break any norm, any law to get it.

As I watched the movie I was reminded on several occasions of George Roy Hill’s “The Sting” (1973) starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. In that movie as in “American Hustle” you have lovable anti-heroes trying to scam some truly awful people (whom in Hollywood, I guess it is morally okay to scam), and you know as you watch, there will be a double-scam wherein our heroes get away with it. Oh so Hollywood. But also like The Sting, American Hustle is an outstanding movie well worth watching for the adult level humor; but most especially for Bale, Adams’, and Lawrence’s acting, and for the inevitable coda at the end of the story arc. You want these heroes to get what they want, and well…they do.

This is definitely a movie only for adults. There is an enormous of profanity and some (let’s say) suggestive clothing.