JOY is a rousing Cinderella story wrapped inside a song by Queen.
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| Jennifer Lawrence in Joy |
JOY 5/5
(Cert 12A; 124mins)
The soundtrack to the heroine's determined assault on the American Dream should really be I Want To Break Free.
Based on the life of Joy Mangano, Joy revolves around a terrific performance from Jennifer Lawrence as a woman who finally gets the chance to write her own fairytale ending.
Joy was a born inventor and might have taken the world by storm if it hadn't been for her unhappy marriage to aspiring singer Tony (Edgar Ramirez), motherhood and the demands of an exhausting, larger-than-life family that includes soap opera obsessed mum Terry (Virginia Madsen) and grumpy, much-married dad Rudy (Robert De Niro).
Then she invents a self-wringing mop that makes her a fortune and becomes one of the great success stories in the early years of television shopping channels, with a little help from boss Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper).
The triumphs and disasters that follow turn Joy into the story of a great survivor. Writer/ director David O Russell lays it on pretty thick with Joy's quirky, suffocating family but Lawrence creates the kind of plucky underdog you are only too happy to cheer and Joy is a feelgood way to start the year.
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| Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis in Sleeping With Other People |
SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE 3/5
(Cert 15; 101mins)
IT is more than 25 years since When Harry Met Sally addressed the burning question of whether men and women could ever be "just" friends. Sleeping With Other People feels like a cruder, crasser version of the same film without the charm or chemistry of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and you never entirely buy into the attraction between the central couple of Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis).
Having lost their virginity to each other in 2002 the couple meet again years later at a sex addicts group. That old feeling is still there but they decide to keeps things platonic, growing close emotionally as they support each other through difficult relationships and emotional crises.
Brie is bright and engaging but womanising, wisecracking Sudeikis seems awfully bland to be the object of so much desire.
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| Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris |
LE MEPRIS 4/5
(Cert 15; 103mins)
LONDON'S BFI Southbank starts the year with a three-month season devoted to the career of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard.
His 1963 feature Le Mepris was one of his most successful and is now being re-released nationwide.
Michel Piccoli stars as Paul, a screenwriter hired to inject fresh ideas into an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey.
Caught between the commercial instincts of boorish American producer Jeremy Prokosch (a predatory Jack Palance) and the purer ideals of director Fritz Lang (playing himself), Paul surrenders his integrity all too easily, earning the contempt of his pouting, capricious wife Camille, played by Brigitte Bardot.
It may be more than 50 years old but this still feels modern and playful in its love of cinema and as a portrait of a crumbling marriage. If you want to know the cinema of Godard, then this is a great place to start.
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| At Any Price starring Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid |
AT ANY PRICE 2/5
(Cert 18; 102mins)
A FARMER'S lot is not a happy one in At Any Price, a glum, heavy-handed state-of-the-nation drama released in America in 2012. Writer/director Ramin Bahrani seems intent on delivering a big statement on the crumbling values of the American heartland and the way farming has fallen victim to greed, corruption and hypocrisy.
He goes about it in an earnest, unconvincing fashion. Dennis Quaid is uncomfortably cast as Henry Whipple, a farmer of dubious moral values who runs an Iowa spread that has been in his family for four generations.
Trying to sustain his version of the American Dream and meet the demands of his father, Henry has placed his faith in a favourite son who seems to be permanently absent on his foreign travels.
Younger son Dean (Zac Efron) has his heart set on becoming a racing driver and resents his father's neglect and the odd gesture of reconciliation he makes.
A melodramatic twist in the tale forces both to confront where their true loyalties might lie.
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