The 'Joy' Teaser Shows Us Exactly What We Want

We've now had biopics of every famous person who has positively shaped humanity, so now in order to have movies released for the end of the year we must turn to inventors of household cleaning items. If anyone is going to make the story about the Miracle Mop inventor into a slick, stylized, and provocative movie then David O. Russell seems like a solid choice. For all the talk that he is a hard to work for director, he has proven to get results when it comes to garnering Oscar nominations for his performers, which is probably why Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, and Jennifer Lawrence are returning for a third go around with him for Joy.



I actually like these quirky movies about not obvious choices for big screen character adaptations. Joy Mangano's life is a true rags to riches type story that not only promises to be inspirational, but will feature a strong but complicated female lead. A thing that actually looks set to happen more than once this fall with movies like Carol, Suffragette, Brooklyn, and By the Sea. Lawrence has proven to be a great character actor that can convey both resounding strength but also sprinkle in some comedy, which I'm sure this movie will demand.

Hopefully, the Russell magic sprinkles on talents like Diane Lane, Virginia Madsen, and Isabella Rossellini who all deserve some award recognition. The narrative seems pretty rich and expansive and a bumpy emotional journey. If Russell stays focused and figured out the tone he wants, then this could definitely be a can't miss for the fall (I'm sure Scott would say it is a must-see as the resident Russell champion on our podcast).

My only complaint is that this is being labelled a teaser. How is almost two minutes of footage a teaser? I can guess the narrative fairly well from what is shown, and you get both Lawrence's fall and rise. It is pretty clear she gets an epiphany over the mop and that it then brings in several new characters into her life. Do we really need to know more? I'm afraid the actual trailer is going to spell out the entire movie for us, because if we don't know the entire plot with every major twist then how can we ever be convinced to pay to see it?