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PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Thursday 24 December 2015
Review: Jennifer Lawrence carries ambitious, imperfect ‘Joy’
This photo shows, Jennifer Lawrence as Joy in a scene from the film, “Joy.” The movie opens in U.S. stakes everything she has her element.
theaters on Dec. 25, 2015. on her new invention: a Returning Russell collabo-
self-wringing mop with a rators Robert DeNiro (“Sil-
(Twentieth Century Fox via AP) machine-washable head. ver Linings Playbook”) and
Along the way, she experi- Cooper (“Silver Linings
SANDY COHEN home-shopping magnate ginia Madsen), along with ences elation and despair, Playbook,” ‘’American
AP Entertainment Writer Joy Mangano, creator of her two children and her personally and profession- Hustle”) each predictably
Jennifer Lawrence is a the Miracle Mop and an ex-husband, who lives in ally. Lawrence brings all deliver, even if their char-
force, whether as the hero executive producer of the the basement. the power and intensity acters aren’t well-drawn.
of “The Hunger Games” or film. Text onscreen at its Flashbacks and daydreams required to portray a de- At one point, Cooper’s
the overburdened, inven- opening says it is “inspired show Joy as a bright, imagi- voted mother and fierce sympathetic home-shop-
tive single mother she plays by true stories of daring native child who reluctant- businesswoman growing ping exec tells Joy he’s too
in “Joy.” women, one in particular.” ly followed a more conven- up through her 30s, even busy to hear her pitch, then
The Oscar winner is in ev- Russell’s eighth feature film tional path when family re- if the actress looks sweetly goes into a lengthy expla-
ery frame of David O. Rus- (and third collaboration sponsibilities took hold. But youthful throughout. It’s her nation about the history of
sell’s new film, shining even with Lawrence) introduces when a flash of inspiration fire and range that speaks. QVC, which seems oddly
among a star-studded cast Joy in the years before she hits after years of life dis- And the 25-year-old star expository. The script suf-
with a performance that makes herself a millionaire. satisfaction, she bets her doesn’t take anything fers from further clunkiness
brings continuity to the Working in a meaningless future on it. away from older actresses, when Joy explains her busi-
writer-director’s ambitious job, she struggles as the With moral support from who relish in delicious op- ness plans to her 5-year-
but flawed story about the financial and emotional her grandmother and ex- portunities of their own. Ros- old daughter (endearingly
dogged persistence of a center of a dysfunctional, husband, seed money sellini, 63, is perfectly cast played by twins Aundrea
determined entrepreneur. multigenerational fam- from her father’s wealthy as an Italian widow, while and Gia Gadsby).
Lawrence plays the title ily. She lives in a crumbling girlfriend (Isabella Ros- 80-year-old Ladd glows as While Russell had unfet-
character, Joy, whose last house with her grandmoth- sellini), and a glimmer of a doting grandmother and tered access to Mangano,
name is never revealed but er (Diane Ladd), her soap- hope from a QVC execu- the film’s narrator. Madsen, he says he took liberties
who’s based on real-life opera obsessed mom (Vir- tive (Bradley Cooper), Joy 54, melts into her charac- with the facts of her story,
ter, a recluse in oversized creating a fictional half-
glasses whose whole world sister (Elisabeth Rohm) to
is a TV soap opera starring add drama beyond the
Susan Lucci. Lucci, 68, plays despondent mom and
a powerful heroine in the codependent dad. It’s
fictional soap that’s meant hard to know what really
to be analogous to Joy’s happened, but it seems
journey of self-discovery, like a woman supporting
but the technique doesn’t her family while building a
really work, especially since multimillion-dollar fortune
the mother’s obsession with with nothing more than
the show seems to border ingenuity and determina-
on mental illness. Still, it’s tion would be dramatic
great to see Lucci back in enough.q
Review: Savagery and virtuosity mingle in ‘The Revenant’
JAKE COYLE have opted for the open This photo shows, Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from the film, “The Revenant.”
AP Film Writer air of the West, circa 1823, (Twentieth Century Fox via AP)
Alejandro Gonzalez Inar- in a loose adaptation of
ritu’s frontier survival saga Michael Punke’s 2002 nov- us forget it, not just in stag- their pursuit through hostile agery all around, Inarritu’s
“The Revenant,” filmed el about the frontiersman gering one-takes but by al- and uncompromising terri- balletic camera sweeps
in the Canadian Rockies, Hugh Glass (Leonardo Di- lowing characters to look tory for beaver pelts. In our through the slaughter and
seeks to join the ranks of Caprio). into the lens, sometimes first view of the trappers, eventually drifts down the
Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarral- The result is some of the even fogging it with their they’re camped in river- river with small band of
do” and Francis Ford Cop- most ravishing filmmaking breath. “The Revenant” side pines when an eerie survivors. Among them are
pola’s “Apocalypse Now”: of the year, or any year, as earns your admiration, only suspense settles over them. Glass, his Pawnee son (For-
movies that take some of Inarritu and Lubezki stretch to lose it by continually in- Arrows from all around rest Goodluck), the com-
their primal madness from their fluid long takes down sisting upon it. sail into them before Ree pany’s leader, Andrew
their raw, remote natural river rapids and into the Somewhere in the realm tribesmen, searching for Henry (Domhnall Gleeson),
landscapes. The making kind of clashes — a maul- of the Dakotas and Mon- a stolen daughter, stream a callow youngster (Will
of those movies are mythic ing grizzly, an ambushing tana is the Rocky Mountain into the camp. Poulter) and John Fitzger-
tales in their own right, and tribe — not rendered be- Fur Co., guided by Glass in With mayhem and sav- ald (Tom Hardy). q
“The Revenant” arrives with fore with this kind of awe-
its own tall tales of on-set inspiring, naturally lit virtu-
tussles and actor derring- osity. But awe is the only
do. After confining himself thing “TheRevenant” is well
largely to the interior of a stocked in, if you don’t
Broadway theater — and count snow and beards.
the psyche of Michael Ke- “The Revenant” isn’t just
aton’s Riggan Thomson — showy about its audac-
in the best picture-winning ity, it’s relentlessly chest-
“Birdman,” Inarritu and his thumping. DiCaprio isn’t
maverick cinematogra- the film’s true star; it’s Inar-
pher, Emmanuel Lubezki, ritu’s camera. He never lets
