Movie Review: Joy

Joy
Directed by:  David O. Russell.
Written by: David O. Russell and Annie Mumolo.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence (Joy), Robert De Niro (Rudy), Bradley Cooper (Neil Walker), Édgar Ramírez (Tony), Diane Ladd (Mimi), Virginia Madsen (Terry), Isabella Rossellini (Trudy), Dascha Polanco (Jackie), Elisabeth Röhm (Peggy), Susan Lucci (Danica), Laura Wright (Clarinda).

David O. Russell is a talented filmmaker – but one that increasingly seems to be flailing – overloading his movies with empty style, while they lack in ideas. This is odd considering his earlier films like Three Kings (1999) and I Heart Huckabees (2003) – which remain far and away his two best films – were films that were bursting with ideas. But since The Fighter (2010), Russell seems content to play around a little bit with studio films, made for Oscars, and aping the style of Martin Scorsese – without ever quite getting underneath the surface of things. True, The Fighter was better and deeper than most inspirational sports movies, and Silver Linings Playbook was better and deeper than most romantic comedies, but both were still fairly safe movies, no matter how well executed. American Hustle was a confused mess – an entertaining confused mess to be sure, but one where a bunch of good performances, garish style and good individual scenes, didn’t really add up to much. Joy is even worse – mainly because so much of the movie is just shrill and disagreeable. As a portrait of dysfunctional family, the film falls flat. As a story of a strong woman, pulling herself up by her bootstraps the film works slightly better – particularly in the QVC scenes, which nearly save the movie. But despite a committed performance by Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role – once again in a role that really calls for an older actress – when the film is over, I didn’t really feel like anyone involved really understood her character – or what the movie was all about.

Lawrence stars as Joy – a single mother of two, who works constantly, but is always poor. She lives in a house with her two kids, her mother (Virginia Madsen), who spends all day, every day, watching the same soap opera in her room and her grandmother (Diane Ladd) – who has always told her is destined for greatness. In her basement lives her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez), who she is better friends with than they were as a couple. And now, her father (Robert DeNiro) is also moving in – having been thrown out by his latest wife. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. And then, Joy comes up with a great idea – which she calls the Miracle Mop – a mop that you wring out without touching it, and then throw the head into the washing machine, to clean it. It is a great idea – and she gets the seed movie from her dad’s newest girlfriend (Isabella Rossellini) – but she cannot sell it. It isn’t until she gets on the new network QVC, run by Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) that things take off.

For much of the movie, the film is little more than another portrait of a dysfunctional family – something Russell himself excelled at in Flirting with Disaster, but does nothing with in Joy. All of the characters are caricatures – and fairly monstrous ones at that. It’s hard not to think the film is rather cruelly mocking most of these people, seeing them all as either pathetic (Madsen), cruel (DeNiro, Rossellini) or both (Elizabeth Rohm, as Joys half-sister). The early scenes are tough to watch – and not in a good way.

The film finds its footing when it reaches QVC – which Russell portrays as an almost surreal world unto itself, with Cooper as a character who is both sleazy and charming – it’s actually some of the best work Cooper has done. For her part, Lawrence keeps the movie watchable in those early scenes – she is trying in vain to create a realistic character amidst all the chaos. Her transformation in the third act into a badass business woman is a little sudden (I’m thinking more of her confrontation in Texas more than building her own company).  It’s as good of a performance as could possibly be expected in a movie this confused. The film doesn’t really see anyone as a realistic character, which hampers the talented cast – with really only Cooper and Lawrence escaping unscathed.

Joy is never boring – as always, Russell overloads the film with style – cribbed from Scorsese, so the film has a lot of energy. But the film doesn’t go anywhere, and doesn’t really seem to know what it’s about. Russell is a talented filmmaker – but Joy is a major disappointment.

Movie Review: American Hustle

American Hustle
Directed by: David O. Russell.
Written by: Eric Singer and David O. Russell.
Starring: Christian Bale (Irving Rosenfeld), Bradley Cooper (Richie DiMaso), Amy Adams (Sydney Prosser), Jeremy Renner (Mayor Carmine Polito), Jennifer Lawrence (Rosalyn Rosenfeld), Louis C.K. (Stoddard Thorsen), Jack Huston (Pete Musane), Michael Peña (Paco Hernandez / Sheik Abdullah), Shea Whigham (Carl Elway), Alessandro Nivola (Anthony Amado), Elisabeth Röhm (Dolly Polito), Paul Herman (Alfonse Simone), Saïd Taghmaoui (Irv's Sheik Plant), Robert De Niro (Victor Tellegio).

American Hustle is an entertaining mess of a movie. It has a talented ensemble cast, all of whom are excellent, and almost every scene in the movie is entertaining in and of itself. I just don’t think the movie really adds up to anything – it has an awkward structure, and the scenes don’t really flow together. David O. Russell is clearly influenced by Martin Scorsese – it shows in many of the film's visual tricks. The difference between Russell and Scorsese is that Russell seems to be doing much of the tricks simply because they look cool. After two hours and twenty minutes, I walked out of the theaters having had a good time, but really having no idea what the movie was trying to say. It lacks any real point of view. But yes, the film is fun.

The film is about a con artist named Irving (Christian Bale) with a crazy wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) who he wishes he could leave, but just cannot quite bring himself to do so. When he meets Sydney (Amy Adams) he meets his equal – a woman just as charming and amoral as he is – someone he can team up with to pull off his many scams. One of those scams draws the attention of the FBI – and agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) has Sydney nailed – but offers the two partners a deal. If Irving and Sydney will help him nail some other con artists, he’ll let them both walk. What starts small soon grows beyond what anyone expected when they hook Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who wants to rebuild Atlantic City – which leads to even bigger politicians and eventually the mob.

The reason to see American Hustle is the performances – all of which are excellent. We are introduced to Bale’s Irving going through an elaborate comb over routine. With the comb over, the big belly, the nasty chest hair, Bale seems to be trying hard to get away from his normal tough guy image – and it works. This is a fully committed comedic performance – he’s the one character in the movie that I never quite knew what he was going to do next – which makes him exciting to watch. Amy Adams is even better as his partner Sydney – at times donning a phony British accent. She’s always on, always looking for an angle. She’s the best conman in a movie full of conmen. Bradley Cooper does excellent work as Richie DiMaso – the FBI agent who starts to believe his own hype. He’s wonderful in his scenes with Adams, where the poor dumb bastard is the only one who doesn’t realize he’s being played. He’s even better when paired with Louis C.K. – who may in fact deliver my favorite performance in the movie – as his buttoned down boss. Jeremy Renner does fine work as Carmine Polito – who proves himself to be corrupt early in the movie, but may in fact be the most honest character in the movie – he does the wrong thing, but for the right reasons. Everyone else does the wrong thing for their own personal gain. Then there’s Jennifer Lawrence, who truly is a force of nature as Rosalyn, who may well be certifiably insane, but breathes life into her every scene in the movie. There is fine work by the large supporting cast – including a one scene wonder by Robert DeNiro, who should work with Russell every time, because along with Silver Linings Playbook, this is the best he’s been in years.

I had fun with American Hustle – especially in the first half of the movie, which was the part of the movie where I thought Russell may be building to something. But I was also a little disappointed in the film – because ultimately, Russell doesn’t build to anything. He’s made an entertaining con job movie – and little else – which is fine as far as it goes. But the problem is that unlike the best con job movies – from The Sting to Ocean’s 11 – American Hustle never really surprised me. The big reveals at the end of the movie are telegraphed from early on in the movie. The bigger problem is that the movie doesn’t have much flow. Each individual scene is fine by themself, but when taken together as a whole, they don’t really add up to anything. The film is about conmen, corrupt politicians, the Mafia – and yet it doesn’t seem to have any point of view on any of it. I find it hard to believe that The Wolf of Wall Street has taken some heat for apparently glamorizing criminals – when it should be clear the movie isn’t – and American Hustle has taken none of the same heat. These people are criminals as well – we meet them as they are scamming desperate people into giving them money in order to secure a loan to keep them afloat (a loan they have no intention of ever providing) – and yet it’s also clear that the movie loves these guys. We are supposed – and do – cheer for them throughout the movie. The movie gives them the happy ending we want – but do the characters really deserve that happy ending?

David O. Russell is a talented director. Personally, I liked his earlier, more daring movies like Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, in which he seemed to be pushing towards something greater. His last three movies – The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and now American Hustle – have all been genre exercises. American Hustle is the least successful of those films. Perhaps the film was rushed in the editing – Russell’s films are usually not this messy and choppy. Or perhaps my expectations were just too high. American Hustle is a fun con job movie – not a particularly original movie, but a lot of fun. It may not be quite the film I hoped it would be, but for what it is, it’s a good film.

Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook
Directed by:  David O. Russell.
Written by: David O. Russell based on the book by Matthew Quick.
Starring: Bradley Cooper (Pat), Jennifer Lawrence (Tiffany), Robert De Niro (Pat Sr.), Jacki Weaver (Dolores), Chris Tucker (Danny), Anupam Kher (Dr. Cliff Patel), John Ortiz (Ronnie), Shea Whigham (Jake), Julia Stiles (Veronica), Dash Mihok (Officer Keogh), Matthew Russell (Ricky D'Angelo), Brea Bee (Nikki).

There was a time when not all romantic comedies sucked. I’m thinking of the 1930s and 1940s, when the classic romantic, screwball comedies were made. It wasn’t that films like Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937) or Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939) to name just two examples told original stories that made them so special – it was that the dialogue in those movies had a musical nature to them, and actors like Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, etc knew how to deliver it to maximum effect. It is in this tradition that David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook fits into. In terms of plot, this is a standard issue romantic comedy – you know precisely how everything is going to play out from fairly early in the running time, even if the characters do not. But the dialogue is excellent – and the actors rip into their roles with the same kind of comic force that we don’t see very often. And the movie even finds some time for some genuine emotions along the way. It is probably impossible to recreate those screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s today, but Silver Linings Playbook comes as close as we’re likely to see in this day of age.

The film stars Bradley Cooper as Pat, who has just been checked out of a mental institution by his mother after an eight month stay. Something happened back then – a violent episode involving his wife – that led to his involuntary confinement. But he’s out now, says he is better, and hell-bent on getting his wife back. This is an unrealistic goal that everybody except Pat seems to realize. She has a restraining order on him and has gotten a divorce settlement, but Pat is determined that eventually, he’ll win her back. He’s been working out – obsessively – lost weight and is even reading the books she teaches to her English classes; to show they have common interests. His mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) is forever kind and patient with him. His father Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro) has some of his sons same issues – just undiagnosed. Pat Sr. is obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles, but has been banned from the stadium for his own violent outbursts – and is superstitious in the extreme about what rituals to follow to ensure the Eagles win.

Things change for Pat when he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a beautiful young widow, with mental issues of her own. She is the sister-in-law of Pat’s best friend Ronnie, who because they have mental illness in common, Ronnie and his wife think they will have a lot to talk about. Like every romantic comedy, the two don’t like each other much at first, but soon they do in fact bond. Their shared loss, which is what drove each of them over the edge, binds them together – and Tiffany’s determination to enter a dance contest with Pat gives them something to work towards together.

The heart of the movie is the scenes between Cooper and Lawrence, both of whom are excellent in their roles. This is the role Cooper in particular has been waiting for – a chance for him to show he’s more than just another pretty boy actor. The movie makes good use of Cooper’s natural charming persona, but also allows him to stretch himself. He is very good at getting into Pat’s somewhat warped head as he tries to get better. For her part, Lawrence elevates what could have been a very standard role – that of the beautiful young woman who helps “heal” the main character. She has issues of her own, and is her own person, but her journey is more in support of Cooper’s, so it to her credit that she makes Tiffany into a fully rounded person. The movie is at its best when these two are by themselves, talking. Russell’s great dialogue moves at rapid fire pace. These two actors find a rhythm all their own in the dialogue, and make their scenes together the highlight of the movie. The supporting cast around these two are also very good – Jacki Weaver, best known for playing the warped matriarch in Animal Kingdom, plays the complete opposite this time – the kindest matriarch imaginable. And it’s good to have Chris Tucker back doing his usual Chris Tucker thing. It can be annoying at times, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen him in a movie, that to me, he was a welcome addition. The best supporting performance belongs to Robert De Niro as Pat Sr., a man struggling in his own ways. De Niro, who so often now seems to sleepwalk through his roles, here is excellent – a man struggling with his own demons, and also struggling with his sons – he wants to help Pat out, but just doesn’t seem to know how.

Silver Linings Playbook was written and directed by David O. Russell. Russell’s first four films – Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabee’s – were all exceedingly strange, and in their way daring. His last two films, The Fighter and now Silver Linings Playbook are more conventional – more easily fit into a specific genre. Yet both of these recent outings are excellent examples of their genre – that Russell, through the intelligence of the screenplays, sensitivity with the actors, and perfect timing as a director, has made better than most films of those genres. Yes, if you walked into the last 10 minutes of Silver Linings Playbook, you could easily conclude that this was just another romantic comedy – one that ends in the same clichéd way they all do. But how Russell gets there is altogether his own. I may wish Russell took a few more chances in his recent movies, but it’s hard to complain too much when the result is a film as entertaining as this.

Movie Review: The Fighter

The Fighter *** ½
Directed By: David O. Russell.
Written By: Scott Silver & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson.
Starring: Mark Wahlberg (Mickey Ward), Christian Bale (Dicky Eklund), Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming), Melissa Leo (Alice Ward), Mickey O'Keefe (Himself), Jack McGee (George Ward), Melissa McMeekin ('Little Alice' Eklund), Bianca Hunter (Cathy 'Pork' Eklund), Erica McDermott (Cindy 'Tar' Ecklund), Jill Quigg (Donna Eklund Jaynes), Dendrie Taylor (Gail 'Red Dog' Eckland), Kate B. O'Brien (Phyllis 'Beaver' Eklund), Jenna Lamia (Sherri Ward), Frank Renzulli (Sal Lanano), Paul Campbell (Gary 'Boo Boo' Giuffrida).

I’m a sucker for a good sports melodrama – and The Fighter is a great one. It tells the story of Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts who gets one final shot at the big time – and makes good. Yet strangely, Mickey is the quietest character in the movie – the calm center if you will. He is surrounded by such colorful characters though, that it is good that Mickey is so grounded. There is only so much craziness one movie can handle – and The Fighter has just enough.

Mickey is the younger brother of Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) who once fought Sugar Ray Leonard – and brags that he knocked him down (although, it does kind of look like Sugar Ray tripped). That was in 1978 though, and now it’s 1993 and Dicky has fallen into crack addiction. HBO is following him around making a movie, and he tells everyone it’s about his “comeback” – but it’s not. It’s about his fall into drug addiction – a promising boxer who screwed himself. But he still trains Mickey – when he can remember to show up at the gym that is.

Dicky would seem to be enough for one family to handle – but poor Mickey has more. His mother Alice (Melissa Leo) is his manager, although she seems to care much more about Dicky and his problems than with helping Mickey and his career. To her, Dicky is an innocent victim – even when she watches the movie on HBO and hears him talking about his drug use, she wonders aloud if the camera crew set him up to look bad. There are also seven very loud, very angry sisters who almost seem to meld into one screaming banshee at times. It’s no wonder Mickey is so quiet – he never gets a chance to speak, and is always trying to keep the peace.

The Fighter ticks off the sports movie clichés one by one. A fighter who is getting one final chance at the big time. Check. Meeting a beautiful, supportive woman – Charlene (Amy Adams). Check. An injury that seems to end all hope (Mickey comes to the aid of Dicky who is being arrested and gets his hand broken in the process). Check. The Fighter has them all and more. Yet what’s strange is how organic the film feels, how natural. Yes, these are clichés, but they are also true and in the hands of director David O. Russell, who gives the film an intimate feel, captures the working class Lowell perfectly, and stages some of the most brutal fight scenes in recent memory, it feels true.

He is aided greatly by his cast – one of the best ensembles of the year. Mark Wahlberg has a rather thankless role – he has to remain grounded and quiet, because if he started screaming than the movie runs the risk of descending into chaos. But he keeps the movie grounded in his reality – and it’s a fine performance. Christian Bale gives one of his best performances ever as Dicky. Yes, it’s a great role – actors love to play drug addicts, and Bale is gifted at hitting all the notes we expect to see from a guy playing a drug addict, but it’s more than that. Dicky is a larger than life, gregarious person – someone who you cannot help but like, even as you watch him destroy himself. It is sometimes easy to forget just how good an actor Bale can be when he plays Batman (which he does perfectly, but he is not a very complex guy), but watching The Fighter I was reminded of that skill Bale has shown in movies like American Psycho, The Machinist and Rescue Dawn. This truly is one of the best performances of the year. Not to be outdone, Melissa Leo grabs hold of her white trash role as their mother, and doesn’t let go. With the big hair, a cigarette constantly dangling from her mouth, and that accent, it would have been easy for the role to descend into cliché territory – but like Bale, she finds the core of the character and delivers a performance of a woman who is both selfish and loving – she values family above all, yet seems to be willing to sell out Mickey for Dicky. Even better than Leo is Amy Adams – that adorable actress we all fell in love with in June bug and Enchanted, and played innocent so wonderfully in Doubt. I think Adams may have taken this role simply because it is so different than everything she is known for – in a movie that drops the F bomb seemingly every 15 seconds or so, I think Adams swears more than anyone else in the film. Like Bale and Leo, her role as the supportive girlfriend could easily have been a cliché – but Adams makes Charlene into a three dimensional character – I love the way she doesn’t back down from Leo or Mickey’s sisters when they insult her, and her profanity fueled tirade at Dicky is one of the best moments of the year.

So yes, The Fighter is a clichéd sports melodrama. It is very much like Rocky, with a lot more swearing. Yet the direction by Russell and the performances of the cast elevate the movie beyond where most movies of its sort go – and makes The Fighter one of the great entertainments of the year.