Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Jennifer Lawrence | ... | ||
Edgar Ramirez | ... | ||
Robert De Niro | ... | ||
Dascha Polanco | ... | ||
Virginia Madsen | ... | ||
Isabella Rossellini | ... | ||
Bradley Cooper | ... | ||
Isabella Crovetti-Cramp | ... | ||
Elisabeth Röhm | ... |
Peggy
(as Elisabeth Rohm)
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Aundrea Gadsby | ... |
Cristy 5 Years Old
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Gia Gadsby | ... |
Cristy 5 Years Old
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Tomas Elizondo | ... |
Tommy 3 Years Old
(as Tomas Denson Elizondo)
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Zeke Elizondo | ... |
Tommy 3 Years Old
(as Zeke Louis Elizondo)
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Diane Ladd | ... | ||
Madison Wolfe | ... |
1995. Joy has always been fascinated by creating things, this pursuit always supported emotionally by her maternal grandmother, Mimi. Joy feels that lack of practical support has led to others making fortunes on ideas she had come up with years ago but could not act upon manufacturing. Despite being broke, Joy is the person in her extended family to who everyone has always turned, in the process forgoing her own life, including not having attended college to help see her parents through their divorce. She works in an unsatisfying job as an Eastern Airlines ticket clerk, and lives with her mother Terry who spends all day in bed watching soap operas, her ex-husband Tony, a less than successful aspiring Latino Tom Jones wannabe, and their two children. Added to this mix is her father Rudy, the owner of a failing heavy-duty garage, which is managed by Joy's older half-sister Peggy, with who she has somewhat of a strained relationship, and for which Joy does the books. Sharon, Rudy's ... Written by Huggo
This is a supposedly "inspirational" kind-of movie based on the life of Joy Mangano a business woman and inventor of home products.
As I'm reading this is far from the actual life of Mangano (who, unlike the Joy in the movie, she went to University and has a degree in business administration). It is more like a blend of the stories of other housewives turned to businesswomen (if you can believe that) and contains lots of fictional elements for dramatic purposes.
Nevertheless the plot is weak. So is the script. There isn't any actual moral here (like "Try and you will succeed"), and the narration of her grandmother dilutes any of that "moral" with too much "it is your destiny" crap.
Soooo, the movie is an empty shell (or should I say Sell, pun intended) but is it fun to watch? No. Not really.
The characters (including Robert De Niro's who plays her father, Elisabeth Röhm's who plays her half-sister, Virginia Madsen's who plays her mother and Isabella Rossellini's who plays her father's girlfriend and serves as the initial investor) are heavily unsympathetic.
The direction is blunt, the pace uneven (I wont spoil you but the resolution of all problems comes in just a few seconds near the end), the situations unbelievable (like going to the...bathroom and unveil a conspiracy by pure luck) etc.
Overall: A blunt movie with weak script and plot. The unsympathetic characters also make this unbearable. Not fun to watch and no true moral in this fictitious sequence of events.