Joy

Joy Mangano is a real person, a woman who started inventing things as a teenager.  She grew up, built a business, kept on inventing things, and has become a regular on the Home Shopping Network.  The movie, Joy, is based “loosely” on the life of the real woman, and stars Jennifer Lawrence.  Lawrence has already won a Golden Globe award as Best Actress for this role, and has been nominated for an Oscar in the same category.  Robert DeNiro plays father Rudy, and Elizabeth Röhm plays sister Peggy.   Röhm is probably best known for her roles in the tv shows Stalker, Beauty and the Beast and the original Heroes, but she will be seen on the big screen a lot in the next year as she has eight movies in production so far in 2016 as well as five roles from 2015.  Other characters you will probably recognize include Bradley Cooper, Diane Ladd, Isabelle Rossellini, Susan Lucci, and Ken Howard. 

The screenplay was written by David O. Russell, who also directed the movie.  He has twelve directing credits, including American Hustle and I Heart Huckabees,   both of which he also wrote.  The original story was written by Annie Mumulo, a comedienne, who also wrote and produced the movie Bridesmaids.   Mumulo took her inspiration from the life story of Joy Mangano, which is a pretty stimulating biography in its own right.  The real Joy grew up in an Italian-American home in New York.  She graduated with a business degree from Pace University, and invented the Miracle Mop.  Starting on QVC in 1992, she moved to HSN and today sells over $150 million a year on that channel.  Sounds like a good premise for a Lifetime movie.  She is listed as an Executive Producer of the movie version of her life, and has been boosting the movie on her own Facebook page, as well as using the movie in the inspirational quotes she posts on Twitter and Facebook.

Much has been written about how the movie differs from real life.  For instance, neither Mangano’s last name nor the product name “Miracle Mop” appear in the movie, but fiction often differs from reality.  The movie has received mixed reviews, but not the star.  This is Jennifer Lawrence’s show, no doubt about that.  She ages 20 years in the two-hour movie, and is so persuasive as she faces the shopping network tv cameras that you want to call in and buy a mop, or ten. 

A Christmas 2015 release, the movie grossed over $17 million on its opening weekend, and over $55 million in its first month.  That means that with an estimated budget of $60 million, the movie hasn’t quite paid for itself yet.  Maybe Joy needs to sell it on QVC.  And if you’re one of those folk who enjoy calling out “Hey Continuity Girl!” watch for DeNiro’s first entrance.  He comes in wearing RayBans, but when he turns around, the glasses are clear.  Turn again, and they’re back to being sunglasses.  Oh well.

Joy is scheduled to be shown Friday through Sunday, February 5^th through the 7^th, 2016 at the Llano Theatre on Railroad Street in downtown Plains.  Show times are 8 p.m. each evening; adult tickets are $5.00.

Upcoming films at the Llano Theatre (subject to change):

JOY PG-13
February 5 - 7
Unknown at this point
February 12 - 14
KUNG FU PANDA PG
February 19 - 21
THE FIFTH WAVE PG-13
February 26 - 28

In the interest of full disclosure:  I have no connection to the Llano Theatre.  I just appreciate the fact that a small town, Plains, Montana, has a movie house that shows great movies at a reasonable price usually within a month of their first on-screen appearance in the big cities, and I want to make sure that those of us who live in the area continue to enjoy this luxury for a long, long time.