Joy
Short description
Joy is a comedy-drama based on the life of Joy Mangano, a single mother on Long Island who supported her family by working hard and seizing whatever opportunities came her way. Frustrated with the mess of cleaning her floors, she develops a self-wringing mop and sets out to sell it, first in small local quantities and then at trade shows. Turning her idea into a business brings a different struggle, involving financing, manufacturing and distribution, while loyalties within her family shift as some relatives become rivals and some opponents become allies. The film follows her over several decades, from her youth through her years as the head of a company she built and ran.
David O. Russell directed and wrote the screenplay, and produced with John Davis and Jonathan Gordon. It is the director's eighth feature, arriving after American Hustle and before Accidental Love in his filmography. Jennifer Lawrence plays Joy, with Robert De Niro as her father Rudy, Bradley Cooper as Neil Walker, Edgar Ramírez as Tony, Diane Ladd as Mimi and Virginia Madsen as Terry. Roughly 87 cast and 85 crew members are credited.
Made for about 60 million US dollars, Joy took in around 101 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from some 152,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.6 from over 4,300. A critics' score of 6.3 from 271 reviews sits close to those audience figures, so professional and general viewers landed in much the same place.
What's left behind the scenes
- Joy Mangano invented the self-wringing Wonder Mop in 1990. Jennifer Lawrence, who played the role of Joy Mangano, was also born in the same year.
- Filming took place in Boston, Massachusetts, and partially in Haverhill. In July 2015, Haverhill's business district was transformed into 1980s Dallas. Haverhill's concert hall served as the Dallas concert hall.
- After finishing filming in the role of Mimi, Diane Ladd agreed to provide the voice-over narration.
- The character of Peggy, Joy’s half-sister, is fictional. It was created by the director and one of the screenwriters, David O. Russell.
- The extravagant Terry, Joy’s mother, played by Virginia Madsen, has little in common with her real-life counterpart. She is, rather, a composite character incorporating traits of some people from Joy Mangano’s circle.
- Tony Miranne, Joy’s ex-husband, played by Edgar Ramirez, studied with her at university. In the film, he is portrayed as a singer from Venezuela.
- This is the fourth collaboration between Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. They have previously starred together in “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012), “American Hustle” (2013), and “Serena” (2014).
- The script is based on the story of a real person, Joy Mangano. This American of Italian descent, an inventor with business acumen, gained fame for her miracle mops and hangers. Mangano is the president of the company “Ingenious Designs.” She regularly appears on the home shopping network “HSN.” A graduate of Pace University in New York, Mangano has patented over a hundred inventions.
- Upon joining the project, director David O. Russell added secondary characters to the plot and combined Mangano’s story with the stories of other women who demonstrated remarkable courage and enterprise, fundamentally changing their lives. As a result, only the most general features of the real Mangano story remained in the film (her transformation from an ordinary woman forced to work to support her children into a successful entrepreneur). Thus, “Joy” cannot be considered a biography, despite initial assurances that it would be. Russell even admitted that during the film’s production, he constantly postponed meeting Joy Mangano precisely because he wanted to make the film his own way. He communicated with the prototype of the main character only by phone. Moreover, the name Joy is never mentioned in the film, and the film’s heroine, unlike Mangano, was not born in Smithtown on the north shore of Long Island, New York.
- As shown in the film, Mangano sold over 18,000 miracle mops in the first hour on the “QVC” channel, proving she knew how to work with people.
- In reality, Joy Mangano graduated from Pace University in 1978 with a degree in management. At the time of graduation, she worked as a waitress and then in the airline ticket pre-booking department.
- According to the film, the ill-fated red wine brought onto the yacht, after which Joy invented the miracle mop, was “Mouton Rothschild” branded with “Andy Warhol.” In 2015, it was sold for around $400 a bottle.
- "Joy" was the first film from Annapurna Pictures to receive a PG-13 rating (parental guidance suggested, some material may be inappropriate for children under 13) in the US, and a 12A rating (children under 12 must be accompanied by someone aged 18 or over) in the UK.
- The film's working title was "The Baptism of Kay".
- This is the second film by David O. Russell not to receive an R rating (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) after "Joy" (2015). The director disowned "Joy" amid creative disputes and financial scandals.
- While Joy prepares for her appearance on QVC, the screen briefly shows makeup artists working on Lori Greiner, the “Queen of QVC,” an inventor and television personality.
- This is the third film directed by David O. Russell to feature Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, and Jennifer Lawrence. They previously worked together on his films "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) and "American Hustle" (2013).
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