We went to see the movie Joy earlier this week. Its characterization by some as a "chick flick" is inaccurate; Joy fits neatly into the bio-pic genre. The tantalizing question, however, is: a bio-pic of whom?
We meet the eponymous Joy as a young child with exceptional craft-design skills. Without patterns she makes paper houses, fences, and characters of various sorts. Fast-forward to her adulthood where she lives as a divorcee with her grandmother, a barely-employed ex-husband, her divorced, soap-opera-addicted mother, her two young children, and--without warning--her between-relationships father. The balance of the story shows Joy against all odds--financial, relational, and legal--overcoming her life of dysfunction to become a multi-millionaire designer and producer of various household products. A female Horatio Alger.
The story seems too good to be true and some of the legal situations portrayed along the way made no sense. Indeed, the film is more inspirational than biographical. (The "Joy" from whose life the film drew its inspiration is Joy Mangano.)
Not bad but certainly not great, Joy is worth a watch if you need a decent way to spend two hours..
We meet the eponymous Joy as a young child with exceptional craft-design skills. Without patterns she makes paper houses, fences, and characters of various sorts. Fast-forward to her adulthood where she lives as a divorcee with her grandmother, a barely-employed ex-husband, her divorced, soap-opera-addicted mother, her two young children, and--without warning--her between-relationships father. The balance of the story shows Joy against all odds--financial, relational, and legal--overcoming her life of dysfunction to become a multi-millionaire designer and producer of various household products. A female Horatio Alger.
The story seems too good to be true and some of the legal situations portrayed along the way made no sense. Indeed, the film is more inspirational than biographical. (The "Joy" from whose life the film drew its inspiration is Joy Mangano.)
Not bad but certainly not great, Joy is worth a watch if you need a decent way to spend two hours..
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