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Joy

Take it from someone who thought director David O. Russell extracted an exhilarating and heartfelt zaniness from Jennifer Lawrence when they worked together on Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle: Joy is a waste of time and talent. Based on the life of a struggling single mother who became a home-shopping network impresario, the movie has exactly one Lawrence-worthy moment: Joy’s discovery, while making her first sales pitch on live TV, that the power is finally in her hands. Otherwise this is all forced family dysfunction (given a condescending comic spin) and a lamentable misuse of talented actors (Isabella Rossellini, Robert De Niro, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen and even Russell vet Bradley Cooper in an ill-fitting supporting role).

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