Joy, Review: Mop to the Top

Is it possible to watch a film based on a true story and feel that some of the scenes are unreal, artificial or contrived? It is. Probably more so, when the writer/director takes liberties galore with the original story and tries to universalise it, adding smart anecdotes and witticisms where honest narrative might have worked better. Joy is one such example. It’s a genre-defying tale, and that’s welcome. Half-baked plot points and half-hearted characterisations come in the way of a simple story that tries to be too sentimental in the first half and too clever thereafter.

It is 1989. Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence) is a divorced mother of two, working as a booking clerk for Eastern Airlines. She lives with her two young children, her mother, Terri (Virginia Madsen), her grandmother, Mimi, and her ex-husband, Tony, New York. Her parents are divorced, and her mother and father, Rudy (Robert De Niro), fight whenever he shows up at her home. Joy's older half-sister, Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm), constantly humiliates Joy in front of her children. Peggy, and Joy's father, Rudy, are very close. Joy's mother encourages Joy to give up her dreams of becoming a successful inventor, although her grand-mother Mimi (Diane Ladd), her divorced husband Tony (Édgar Ramírez) and her best friend, Jackie (Dascha Polanco), believe she will pursue her ideas and become a strong, successful woman.

After divorcing his third wife, Joy's father starts dating Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), a wealthy Italian widow with some business experience. While the family is cruising on Trudy's 55 ft. boat, Joy drops a glass of red wine, attempts to mop up the mess, and cuts her hands on the broken glass, while wringing the mop. She returns home and creates blueprints for a self-wringing mop. She builds a prototype with help from the employees at her father's metal work-shop. She then convinces Trudy to invest in the product. There are calamities after calamity, but Joy is a never-say-die woman, hell-bent on taking her invention to consumers. Success is in sight when she convinces shopping TV channel boss Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) to give her a chance to launch her product herself.

The real Joy Mangano was indeed a divorced mother, with three children, when she invented the Miracle Mop, and became an overnight success, after which she patented many other products, often selling on the Home Shopping Network (HSN) TV and Quality, Value, and Convenience (QVC, founded by Joseph Segel in1986) shopping channels. The Miracle Mop was a flop when it was first pitched on QVC by a regular anchor, after which Joy appeared on the network to pitch it herself. She made her first appearance in 1992, and sold a whopping 18,000 units in less than 30 minutes (as shown in the film). In under a decade, the mops were raking in $10 million a year in sales. During that time, she added more inventions to the line-up, including Forever Fragrant air freshener products, Huggable Hangers, and Performance Platforms shoes.

Story is by Annie Mumolo (actress, writer; Bridesmaids). In 2012, Mumolo was hired by Fox 2000 and producer John Davis to adapt the life of Joy Mangano (real-life creator of the Miracle Mop), and spent a year working on the script. The studio felt the screenplay needed more character development and offered the project to David O. Russell. Russell dropped some biopic elements and fictionalised part of the story, making the main character a composite of several female entrepreneurs, dedicating the film to them in general, and to ‘one’ (obviously Mangano) in particular, on screen. Mumolo is credited with the story, and should it win at the Oscars, her claim will be acknowledged. But screenplay will remain a Russell credit.

Russell (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter; three Oscar wins) is a name that commands respect. Here, he meanders quite a bit. Beginning with an over-acted and hackneyed soap opera being watched by Terri was an interesting ploy. Repeating it once too often was not. Humour often comes across as black and sarcastic, and the twists are either tame or too clichéd. Two exceptions stand-out: the affair of the plumber and the K Mart car-park scene. When the film enters crime territory, you cannot help remember American Hustle. Joy, however, does not come across as a daredevil sleuth. The stilted Texas hotel-room scene, and the unnecessary flashback and flash forward as she emerges from the hotel needed to be better written or avoided totally. Mimi as the narrator is, again, dispensable--and never-mind the trick about her narration continuing after her on-screen death.

Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class, The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) is cast in a Meryl Streep-ish part, with a better beauty quotient. She looks lost, confused and determined, as needed, emerging apt and competent, without being outstanding. Robert De Niro, jaw firmly askew, has a ball, and exudes the confidence he is known for. Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers, The Hangover, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper) gets another opportunity to do a non-stereotypical role. Unfortunately for him, it is not well-delineated, and slips into familiar trappings, with standard lines to mouth. Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez, fluent in English, German, Italian and French and, of course, Spanish, undergoes a sea-change after Point Break, and is noticeably more comfortable here. You might remember him in The Bourne Ultimatum, Ilich: The Story of Carlos, Point Break.

80-year-old Diane Ladd (All Night Long, Chinatown, Alice Doesn't Live Here AnymoreRambling Rose, Hot Water Biscuits, Relative Truth) is wasted as Mimi. Virginia Madsen (father Danish, mother Irish and Native American; Sideways, Firewall, A Prairie Home Companion, The Ripple Effect, The Number 23, The Astronaut Farmer, Diminished) acts very little, the natural style suiting her role. She gets to bring in a twist in the tale, providing some genuine comic relief. In a meaty role, we have the much married and often linked Isabella Rossellini, 64, one of the twin daughters of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. The Blue Velvet, Immortal Beloved, Wyatt Earp and Big Night actress acquires a part-Italian accent to go with the role. What she sees in Rudy is not explained, nor is her confused ambivalent behaviour. No denying her strong persona, though. Dascha Polanco is endearing.

Joy has its share of joyous moments. You do want to applaud the indomitable spirit of a woman entrepreneur in the USA of 25 years ago. The idea that a humble mop can help you sweep your way to the top in the cut-throat world of forged patents and motivated detractors does capture one’s imagination. It just needed cleaner screen adaptation.

Rating: **1/2

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