Joy (2015)

A divorced single mother (Jennifer Lawrence) is trying to keep a dysfunctional family remaining on civil terms which is hard when they all live under the same roof. Her ex-husband (Edgar Ramrirez) lives in the basement with her father (Robert De Niro) who is divorced from her mother (Virginia Madsen) who lives in her bedroom watching soap operas all day. But there's a way out from a strength that even she doesn't know she has in her. Everybody loves a story about an underdog and director David O. Russell follows his AMERICAN HUSTLE with this marvelous dramedy with another sensational Jennifer Lawrence performance. The true story about the inventor of the Miracle Mop doesn't sound very exciting but Russell has crammed his movie with eccentric and interesting characters and Lawrence's Joy is so likable that the audience is rooting for her all the way through the downs and ups and downs again. It's fresh and unpredictable and a love song to powerful women and what they have to overcome in a man's world. In the hands of a lesser director, this might have been just another Lifetime movie but what Russell gives us is, well ..... a joy (pun intended). With Bradley Cooper, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Susan Lucci, Elisabeth Rohm, Donna Mills, Dascha Polanco and Melissa Rivers (playing her mother Joan).