A Matriarchal Underdog
January 10, 2016
Joy (2016).
D/W: David O. Russell. DP: Linus Sandgren. Starring: Jennifer Lawrence/Robert De Niro/Bradley Cooper/Édgar Ramirez/Virginia Madsen/Diane Ladd/Isabella Rossellini/Elisabeth Rohm/Dascha Polanco.
January is one of the best months for movies as there is a mad rush towards award season despite the pretense that filmmakers do not care about awards. A fun and debatable topic, this January has seen the release of Joy, a new film for Jennifer Lawrence. One that is not based on a YA novel or a comic book, a relief frankly.
This is the third collaboration for director David O. Russel with actors Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. The stellar Silver Linings Playbook won Lawrence her Oscar and the group reunited for 2013’s American Hustle. It is easy to understand repeat collaborations due to success, comfort, and creativity, but for me this has been fizzling out for awhile. Silver Linings Playbook was able to hold its audience until the end, drawing out its romance and drama in a way that felt fresh. American Hustle looked great and started off strong, but fell apart and left you feeling a bit bamboozled. Joy is a similar experience.
Starting off strong the film is narrated and structured by Diane Ladd who plays Joy’s (Lawrence) live in grandmother. As she reflects on the life of her seemingly favorite grandchild we get flashbacks of a character seen through the eyes of a loved one. Spunky and inventive young Joy is encouraged to make things, but her parents divorce spirals her to drop her dreams, fall in love, have kids, and eventually get divorced. Now the family breadwinner she struggles to return to her former inventive self. Using her daughters crayons one day she invents a self ringing mop that would become the now famed Miracle Mop.
Loosely inspired on the life of Joy Mangano, O. Russell reworked writer Annie Mumolo (who co-wrote Bridesmaids) original script so as to stray away from a straight biopic. Rather, Joy is a combination of women and Lawrence was free to create instead of imitate. Lawrence is full throttle here as she bears her burdens and stands up for herself. She’s not bad and her relate-ability works here, but there is a bit too much glamorizing for my tastes. She’s best in smaller moments of triumph like getting through a televised demonstration of her mop on the Home Shopping Channel than sauntering down the street in a pair of shades. Also please no more “She cuts her hair off in the bathroom herself then wins the day” scenes. Please!
Lawrence is surrounded by talent with De Niro getting some truly awfully patronizing lines that he manages to deliver convincingly. Édgar Ramirez is also great as her ex-husband/lounge singer Tony. The winner is surely Virginia Madsen as Joy’s anxiety stridden mother who never leaves her bedroom and watches soap operas all day. The importance of this fictional world and its visual conceit is never followed through. An fascinating echo of trapped pain and lost ambitions in generations of women. This is frustrating as most of Russell’s visual decisions disappear by the final act. Here he is working again with cinematographer Linus Sandgren who shot American Hustle, bearing its same faults in a way.
Ultimately, Joy is pleasing and infectious because it is essentially an underdog story. In a time of the active use of the word ‘feminism’ it is easy to route for a young girl who says when she creates that her gift is that she doesn’t “need a prince.” By the time her father says to her it’s his fault because he made her believe she could do anything you will want to punch something. Joy leaves you swinging your arms in triumph, but wondering if it couldn’t have been better.
A Fizzing Folly
November 10, 2015
Burnt (2015).
D: John Wells. DP: Adriano Goldman. W: Steven Knight. Starring: Bradley Cooper/Sienna Miller/Daniel Bruhl/Omar Sy/Matthew Rhys/Emma Thompson/Uma Thurman/Sam Keeley/Alicia Vikander/Lily James/Riccardo Scamarcio.
The restaurant world is an obvious high energy setting for drama, comedy and even violence. With the sheer amount of home-cooking shows, restaurant re-do shows, road trip eating shows, and food competitions on television even if you are not watching them you are inundated with them. The enthusiasm and drama of The Great British Bake-Off was of national importance here in London. It’s safe to say that Burnt is correctly set in London, but its boring plot and contrivances make for one bland plate.
Bradley Cooper grins and shouts his way through the film as Gordon Ramsey-esq chef David who has a drug laden dark past just bad enough to make him sexy, but not too bad that he cannot actually recover and chase his Michelin dreams again. David even serves some kind of personal penance in New Orleans and shucks oysters for two years. The opening is so needless you almost wonder if after Jon Favreau’s Chef came out last year that writer Steven Knight was told, ‘nope move it somewhere else can’t have another foodie movie in nola this soon,’ a pity. After seeing Cooper tackle something as challenging as The Elephant Man on stage Burnt feels like a career ditch.
Along David’s recuperation trail is a cameo by Uma Thurman (how much did she work on that accent?) and some cute visits with the ‘voice of reason’ therapist Emma Thompson. Of the moment younger actresses Lily James and Alicia Vikander appear to just disappear again. All to service Sienna Miller as Helene who is so trapped in her ‘supportive woman’ role it might make you want to scream. She at least has much more to do than she did in Foxcatcher, but she still falls for Cooper’s grin and all the film’s contrivances. Matthew Rhys and Omar Sy are admirable friends and foes for Cooper, but who cares?
If there is one saving grace it might be German actor Daniel Bruhl (The Fifth Estate, Rush). His turned-out tight-mouthed maitre de Tony is a slight gleam of sunshine in a dark kitchen. Director John Wells must have seen this and uses him to inject humor and character into scenes. Bruhl is never over the top in a role that could easily have become a parody. Nevertheless, Wells uses so many montages and prep sequences that you end up not salivating for something juicy, but actually begrudging Burnt for not being a better copycat. Did Wells see 2007’s No Reservations? Considering how fantastic his last film, August: Osage Country, was this is a disappointment.
A Stand Up Film
December 2, 2012
Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
D/W: David O. Russell. DP: Masanobu Takayanagi. Starring: Bradley Cooper/Jennifer Lawrence/Robert De Niro/Jacki Weaver/Chris Tucker/Julia Stiles/John Ortiz/Anupam Kher/Shea Whigham/Dash Mihok. (NOTE: Based on Matthew Quick’s 2008 novel of the same name.)
I won’t bore you with another trailer lamentation. With all the Oscar propaganda and holiday movie hub-bub I just can’t stomach it. Yet Silver Linings Playbook might just be the best of the year, and I almost opted out.
David O. Russell took 2010’s The Fighter and made it into the best film it probably could have been. Yet here, with his own project, a better sense of wholeness is felt. A liberation. Or maybe that’s just the byproduct of a very smart story.
Silver Linings Playbook gives Bradley Cooper (Limitless, Hangover) a decent opportunity to wipe that obnoxious grin off his face and get to acting. Cooper’s American bred handsomeness and borderline bonkers grin gives his Pat a disarming amount of charm. You can almost see the gears and hinges working in Cooper’s brain as his Pat must re-acclimate to life after his release from a psychiatric institution. Just as abruptly as his mother (Australian actress Jacki Weaver) picks up from the institution, the audience must immediately start to unpack his situation and his emotional suitcase.
Cooper and his obsessive compulsive father, played by Robert De Niro, attempt to navigate his situation and mental illness like ships that pass in the night. Eventually Cooper’s friendship with Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany (be still my 90s heart) gets the film going to where it should. What was muddled in The Hunger Games, is fully realized here. Lawrence’s Tiffany is scarred and self-destructive, but so deliciously so you’ll want to join in on her one person party. Lawrence gives Tiffany a nuanced amount of vulnerability and tough tail spunk. She not only spits to Cooper’s Pat that she’s a bit messy and is okay with it. But I feel it with her, right down to the final eyeliner stroke. And I like it.
The couple’s chemistry is the driving force of the film, allowing the family conflict to breathe and refrain from melodrama. Towards the end you might have the urge to ask, was this a romantic comedy I’ve been watching? Well, maybe, but you certainty didn’t feel it coming. And that is exactly what is so refreshing about Silver Linings Playbook. It does not candy coat stale tropes or confine drama to common conflict. Rather it marches you into a story that captures the heart of modern American life and puts it onscreen. These characters have problems, but that’s alright. Down crumbles the facade of Hollywood movie stardust. Just try not to sneeze.