Joy pursues a number of ill-fitting narrative detours that detract from the fascinating story that should be at the core of the movie. While I was rooting for the film-and for Joy herself - ultimately it felt like the film missed a key opportunity.

| Feb 9, 2021

This optimistic, often amusing story is a Lawrence show all the way as she flies the flag for feminism, entrepreneurship and family without missing a beat.

| Aug 15, 2019

Oh Mr. Russell, you're nothing if not predictable.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 1, 2017

I love the expedition that this wonderfully complex heroine is on, watching her use her intelligence to get what she wants out of life is gloriously gratifying.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 16, 2016

I am a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan -- I think she is an intuitive and smart actress -- and it's great that she's been given a part this meaty to sink her teeth into. And I get why Russell cast her... But boy oh boy, is she miscast.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 12, 2016

It's a messy script, even by Russell's own lax standards; characters disappear for huge swaths of the narrative, story strands don't pay off, and big emotional beats are so overcooked they smoke up the screen.

| Apr 27, 2016

Joy's "inspired by" story doesn't bore and yet there's not much to cheer about...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.3/4 | Jan 7, 2016

All the usual fun Russell crossfire is here, however, with people speaking their kooky minds and getting in each other's business.

| Jan 4, 2016

Some grandiose opening sentiments about celebrating female determination noted, Russell's mad film comes across like a buzzy, energetic work in progress.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2016

The movie's a shambles, alternatingly agreeable and aggravating, held together by our interest in its heroine and by Lawrence's tremendously sympathetic performance.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 3, 2016

Russell is almost totally uninterested in the story of how Joy Mangano explored a bizarre and unknown new business model and became its first self-made tycoon, and as a result we aren't interested either.

| Jan 3, 2016

You won't be bored - but Russell never convinces you that this mop-maker's story is worth getting in a lather about.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2016

Joy is for the most part a bewildering mess-possibly because its four credited editors are a sign of structural problems, possibly just because Russell throws too much directorial dash at us when he should be making things simple.

| Jan 2, 2016

Had Lawrence been born before 1910, she might have stolen roles from Jean Arthur or Carole Lombard -- if not the haute Myrna Loy.

| Jan 1, 2016

The latest feature from writer-director David O. Russell is a quirky but very perceptive comedy-drama made in Russell's usual freewheeling style.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2016

Thick with potential and irony, and could make for a tremendous film. When Joy embraces that side of itself, it almost gets there. When it doesn't, well, it's just plain bad.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 29, 2015

Joy is a film about life's defiance of expectations. It defies them right back.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 29, 2015

Two years after Jennifer Lawrence appeared in David O. Russell's American Hustle, she gets to show some.

| Dec 28, 2015

It's clear that the point here isn't people, it's payoff, emotional and otherwise.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 25, 2015

Perhaps people who make gazillions selling housewares on The Shopping Channel deserve to be honoured; if they do, Joy is not a fitting tribute to Mangano - nor to the mop.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Dec 25, 2015