Nominated for two Golden Globes, Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Jennifer Lawrence, the film "Joy" is a quirky inspiring production. Based on a true story about entrepreneur Joy Mangano, "Joy" depicts a young woman's struggle to pursue her childhood dreams of inventing and creating.
The story of a family across four generations, Mangano the granddaughter, daughter, and mother of two become the founder of a business empire. Facing betrayal, corruption, the loss of self faith and the scars of love, Mangano becomes a true boss of family and enterprise in a world of unforgiving commerce. Family member help and hurt her through her entrepreneurial process, ultimately fueling her passion for success and achievement.
By the end of the movie, I found this summary to be true and would recommend the movie to others based on the phenomenal performance of Jennifer Lawrence. Within the first half hour to 45 minutes of the movie, I began to lose interest. While the beginning of the movie was necessary to build the background knowledge of where Mangano came from and how she became who she is, it could have been set in a shorter time. The first portion of the movie was primarily set in the home of Mangano and her family, while it made a parallel point that Mangano was stuck in this house for her whole life, it lacked visual dimension and made me lose interest.
When the setting of the movie moved the QVC headquarters in Amish Country the movie quickly picked up pace, with the introduction of a a new setting and the character Neil Walker played by Bradley Cooper the film immediately became enthralling. This seemed to be a turning point for Mangano as well, she became a strong business mogul willing to take on any obstacle to claim her dream.
Towards the end of the movie Mangano played by Lawrence had her spirit broken after endless betrayals, this lead to a dark hair chopping bathroom scene, which seemed rather cliché. With her new bad ass bob, Mangano got her spirit back and reclaimed what she worked so hard for and proved to be the intelligent, creative, hardworking woman that her loving Mimi always believed her to be.
At the conclusion of the movie I felt inspired and a strong sense of feminism. If you can appreciate the quirky and a somewhat dark beginning of the movie you will not be disappointed by the end of the film.
