Joy – 2.5 stars

David O. Russell’s American Hustle was an over-heralded, stream-of-consciousness mess, but it was nominated for Best Picture, and I was a huge fan of Silver Linings Playbook, so the watching of Joy was obligatory. It was not an altogether unpleasant experience given Russell’s command of the camera and his early sense of pace. Russell briskly lntroduces us to Joy Mangano, a little girl and then a young woman destined for great things, if only she weren’t consistently thwarted by her lunatic family, a coterie of misfits and weirdos so peculiar they veer into Tim Burton territory. Still, with her one big idea – a self-wringing mop – she perseveres to become queen of The Home Shopping Network, though her journey is an exhausting “one step forward, two steps back” ordeal so arduous, even Jennifer Lawrence’s pluck and a kick ass Rolling Stones song (“Stray Cat Blues”) can’t make the resolution tolerable. One gets the sense Russell knows his audience is bored, because he appears to get bored, veering off into a resolution so off-kilter (Lawrence faces down her business foe in Texas, cutting her hair and donning leather, after reviewing some documents in a “Voila!” moment) it is laugh out loud funny.