Mimi Mangano sees her granddaughter, Joy, making inventive paper cut-outs. She envisions a geometric genius in the making. And she is right.
The grown-up Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) is the lynch pin of her totally dysfunctional family, all living in the same house. As the only one with a steady job, she manages to move, if somewhat ungracefully, through crisis after crisis.
Ingenuity helps her cope. Her ex-husband Tony (Edgar Ramirez) lives in her basement. When Dad (Robert DeNiro) moves in she puts him in the basement also. To keep the two from feuding, she strings a toilet paper line to define their respective rectangular territories.
Joy’s underlying mechanical creativity comes to light when she invents a self-wringing mop.
Coincidentally, her father meets a wealthy woman via an internet dating service. She, Trudy, is willing to partially underwrite the costs of getting Joy’s invention into the market place.
Joy now faces the all the real life hurdles of business. She quickly learns through the school of hard knocks what it took me two years in post-graduate school to learn to get my MBA.
Helping her along is Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) who is the guru of QVC.
Lawrence uses the same indomitable attitude that she exhibited in “Hunger Games” to ace this role. She has already captured this year’s Golden Globe award for Best Actress.
“Joy” is a joy to watch. No nudity or bad language. The show gets an undeniable A grade with well above average plot and acting. This entertaining adaptation of a true story is now showing at the Old Mill Playhouse and Barnstorm Theater in The Villages.
Note: Today, Joy Mangano is wealthy and holds over 100 patents. She lives in a large house which is home to her still very extensive family.
Villager Jack Petro reviews movies for Villages-News.com