joy house movie reviews

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women. A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women. A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women.

• René Clément
• Pascal Jardin
• Charles Williams
• Alain Delon
• Lola Albright
• 29 User reviews
• 23 Critic reviews

• Barbara Hill

• Father Nielson

• Mac Kee - the mob boss

• The Corsican …
• Schneider …

• Le clochard
• (as Douking)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (2009) in May 2023, Jane Fonda revealed that French filmmaker Rene Clement tried to have sex her but she refused. He was 51 at the time, while she was only 27. He told her he wanted to do it because her character had to have an orgasm in the movie and he needed to see what Fonda's orgasms were like. While Fonda previously told this story to CNN, this is the first time she specifically named Clement as the perpetrator.
• Goofs When the car with two people goes over the cliff in the convertible, you can clearly see that only one person (the driver) is in the car.

Melinda : Not bad. But you still have progress to make. You have to lean how to clean everything. Everything that was used.

Marc : Then we'd never be done.

• Connections Featured in Filmmaking on the Riviera (1964)
• Soundtracks Theme From Joy House (Just Call Me Love Bird) Written by Lalo Schifrin & Peggy Lee

User reviews 29

• Dec 29, 2004
• How long is Joy House? Powered by Alexa
• November 1964 (United States)
• Wie Raubkatzen
• Gare de Nice-Ville, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France (train station)
• Compagnie Internationale de Productions Cinématographiques (CIPRA)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 37 minutes
• Black and White

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Joy House (1964) - Bluray Review

Opening upon a black-and-white vision of the New York city skyline, we are promptly checked into a classy hotel. But it seems that there aren’t too many classy activities going on here as we witness a giant, angered mobster forcing his wife to fess up where her debaucherous actions with the handsome, French playboy Marc, ( Alain Delon ), happened a few nights prior. She fesses up, and the mobster orders Marc’s head. The woman screams, and then we are transported to France where the hunt for Marc’s pretty head begins. While hiding out from these blood-thirsty henchmen in a church, Marc ends up in service to a loaded widow, Barbara ( Lola Albright ) and her cousin/maid, Melinda ( Jane Fonda ), as their live-in chauffer. But anyone with eyes and ears are quickly clued-in to the fact that these good-natured and beautiful women aren’t exactly the angels they appear to be. And the desperate Marc will soon find out the hard way.

Now, there are a lot of things about this pulpy film that would, in theory, make it very good. However, I’m going to be honest with you: I really didn’t care for it. And still…I watched this movie twice. I did this because after watching it the first time, I was actually struck by my negative feelings towards it. There are a lot of things to like. The opening hooks you, the story and the twists are clever, and there is no doubt that director Ren  Clément has a very strong visual vocabulary that is very nicely complimented by Henri Decaë ’s beautiful black-and-white photography. But! There are many of things in this film that don’t work for me.

And then there is Delon . In Joy House , he isn’t exactly the calm and cool professional that he’s famous for. And by all accounts, it is fine, even great, to see him express his acting range. But there is something off about this performance. Maybe it’s the dialogue, maybe it’s the inflections from his French accent, or maybe it is something else I cannot quite put my finger on. But in this, his performance is, for lack of a better word, stiff.

Like I said, there are lots of things that could make this film very good, but it boils down to bad execution. It has the makings of a good thriller, but just presents itself as sort of odd. It feels like it is a film that could not get a full grasp on what tone it wanted. But hey, maybe it’s just me! Maybe the tone is just something that I cannot fully comprehend. Who knows? And to me, the best parts about this film are the very beginning and the very end. A great hook of an opener and a clever, full-circle closer that is shockingly satisfying to a degree. But those two things do not save the picture.

Joy House is now available on Blu Ray courtesy of Kino Lorber .

Home Video Distributor: Kino Lorber Available on Blu-ray - May 30, 2023 Screen Formats: 2.35:1 Subtitles : English SDH Language: French Discs: Blu-ray Disc; single disc Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

A scorching love triangle ignites between the iconic Jane Fonda ( Klute , Coming Home ), sultry Lola Albright ( Kid Galahad , Lord Love a Duck ) and Alain Delon ( The Sicilian Clan , Un Flic ) in René Clément ’s Joy House ( Les Félins ). Delon stars as Marc, a dashing young con man on the run from the mob. After seeking refuge in the Riviera villa of the widowed Barbara ( Albright ) and her curvaceous cousin, Melinda ( Fonda ), Marc becomes trapped in the passionate snares of both women, who are full of sinister surprises. A neglected masterpiece from director René Clément ( Forbidden Games , Is Paris Burning? , Rider on the Rain , And Hope to Die ), Joy House weaves a wicked web of hidden desires and all-too-human corruptions. Lalo Schifrin ( Coogan’s Bluff ) provides the eerie musical score; Henri Decaë ( Le Samouraï ) serves up the sumptuous cinematography.

Pretty much everything about the new 2K Restoration by Gaumont is quite good. There are no noticeable scratches, dirt, or other imperfections to be found. Though the film doesn’t always take full advantage of the black-and-white stylistic lighting that it could have, the greyscale looks well-balanced to give the film a nice, bright, and natural feel.

Including both the English and French audio tracks, music, dialogue, and sound effects come in crystal clear with no buzzing or pops to be noticed. The only slight issue I found with the audio is that seem to be a couple points where a line or two gets dropped out during a transition. But it only occurs a couple times, so it isn’t really that much of an issue.

Supplements:

Similar to a lot of the other low-key films that are getting a new release, the special features are mainly confined to a number of trailers and some thoughtful and intelligent commentary from film scholars. It’s not much, but definitely appreciated and very educational for those interested to hear more about the film and film history.

Commentary :

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson

Special Features:

• Theatrical Trailers

MPAA Rating: Runtime: 105 mins Director : René Clément Writer: René Clément; Pascal Jardin; Charles Williams Cast: Alain Delon; Jane Fonda; Lola Albright Genre : Drama Tagline: Memorable Movie Quote: Theatrical Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Official Site: https://kinolorber.com/product/joy-house-1 Release Date: November 1964 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: May 30, 2022 Synopsis : A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women.

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1964 ‘Les Félins’ Directed by René Clément

The Women of the "Joy House" Allowed Him Every Freedom...Except the Freedom to Leave!

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.

Alain Delon Jane Fonda Lola Albright Sorrell Booke Carl Studer André Oumansky George Gaynes Annette Poivre Berett Arcaya Marc Mazza Jacques Bézard Jean-Pierre Honoré Georges Douking Del Negro Arthur Howard

Director Director

René Clément

Producer Producer

Jacques Bar

Writers Writers

René Clément Pascal Jardin Charles Williams

Original Writer Original Writer

Editor editor.

Fedora Zincone

Cinematography Cinematography

Henri Decaë

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Costa-Gavras

Production Design Production Design

Composer composer.

Lalo Schifrin

Sound Sound

Antoine Bonfanti

Costume Design Costume Design

Pierre Balmain

Makeup Makeup

Aïda Carange

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Alex Archambault Jacques Dessange

Cité Films Compagnie Internationale de Productions Cinématographiques (CIPRA)

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English French

Releases by Date

12 jun 1964, 27 aug 1964, 01 nov 1964, 03 jun 2020, releases by country.

• Theatrical TP
• Physical DVD & Blu-Ray
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical NR

97 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Slig001 ★★★★½ 2

It would seem that a lot of people don't like this film. I don't understand why. I've always loved it. Joy House is pure pulp fiction - red herrings, an awkward love triangle and some outrageous twists. It's all so slick too! Alain Delon is a playboy on the run. His salvation comes in the form of two angels dressed in black who whisk him away to a fairytale castle - and that's where his real troubles begin! Everything about this film is so ambiguous - it's never clear where it's going, but the set up is presented so well that it's easy to buy in to whatever is in store. Much of the intrigue comes from the characters -…

Review by D Rock ★★★

Fromage-y thriller from René Clément, essentially a lighter-weight, less-successful counterpart to Plein Soleil, Clément’s masterpiece in the genre, produced four years earlier.

In this Delon plays a rascal-y playboy on the run on the Côte d’Azur from an angry American mobster whose squeeze he has… squeezed. But he falls into the clutches of a pair of beautiful, mysterious women (Lola Albright and Jane Fonda) living alone in a seaside villa, both of whom have designs on him, in more ways than one if you catch my drift.

These two telegraph their not-quite-rightness from the very start, you’d have to be an idiot not to see they’re trouble. Delon’s not an idiot, but he also needs a place to hide, and…

Review by Joe ★★★★ 2

"The only people who really dug that movie, for some reason, were junkies. They used to come up to me and give me a big wink." - Jane Fonda on this movie.

Visually stunning even before it hits a level of preposterous-ness that forces you to assess it beyond face value, and to be honest I don't really know what all is hiding in this particular attic - check out those eye lights, though.

Review by noir1946 ★★★½ 2

“I want you to go to Europe and get him.” “Europe’s a big place.”

Rene Clement and Al Delon just stopped by Chateau Noir tother day to chat about how purple noon can be. They had such a swell time, they came by again to spread some joy about the house.

A New York gangster (George Gaynes) discovers his wife (Berett Arcaya) has been playing rumpy-pumpy with Marc (Al Delon) and sets his thugs after the Frenchman. Escaping them, Marc takes refuge in the Riviera villa of two strange—make that tres strange—American women, cousins Barbara (Lola Albright) and Melinda (Jane Fonda). Barbara’s hubby had been killed two years earlier by her lover, Vincent (Andre Oumansky), who remains at large. Marc,…

Review by ClinTarantino ★★★★ 1

„You can check out any time you like but you can never leave“ 

Joy house feels like hotel California and just is another wonderful little film of clement who once again knows how to setup a young Alain delon. 

Near the Magnificent and very stylish score  the supporting cast with a young Jane Fonda could totally shine. A fast pacing and a twisted finale makes this to one of the easiest watches of delons filmography.

Review by hiruko ★★★★★ 3

“John! Here comes the patsy!”

Lalo Schifrin delivers some hard boppin’ jazz score to this stylish, cool and twisted film by René Clément. Alain Delon is a lover boy on the run from some relentless and sadistic pursuers, finding refuge as a hired chauffeur to a beautiful rich widow and her sexy maid. Sexual tensions ensue in this nouveau noir with enough oddness to be a spiritual companion to the likes of Sunset Boulevard. 

Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg) plays one of the henchmen whose sole role is to photograph the crimes they commit. 

“Hey you! Frenchie!” “ I’m not French. I’m Corsican, like Napoleon.” “Well that’s not your fault.”

Review by nora ★★ 6

this mostly sucks and i only watched it bc i wanted to see jane fonda and alain delon together but all of their interactions made me angry so this was a bust. alain delon running around in a pilot uniform almost makes up for how shit this is but like...not quite.

( 9/10 from 1964 )

Review by AJ ★★★

Twisty French noir-thriller with a very fun premise, but it never quite pulls it off completely. I get that some would like that it has so much going on that we never delve into, but in thrillers like this where there are as many red herrings as there can possibly be, I'd like a bit more explanation. Still jazzy, still a hardcore ending, still fun.

Jane Fonda #23

Review by angela ★★★½

jane fonda should absolutely be allowed to do that

Review by Scott Kelly ★★★½ 1

This twisty thriller shot in black and white and 'scope reunites the Purple Noon crew of Alain Delon , Rene Clement , DP Henri Decaë and the scenic Côte d'Azur. A stylish gothic neo-noir where the convoluted plot is half the fun. The highly compelling pre-credit sequence and the opening scenes involving American gangsters are basically red herrings, little more than a plot mechanism to get the caddish anti-hero played by Delon into a hillside mansion hideout and into the clutches of an enigmatic and sexy pair of ladies played by Lola Albright and Jane Fonda (both are great). Is this fetching duo lonely, crazy, sex starved, or homicidal? Whatever the case it becomes increasingly clear that they will end up aiding and abetting the comeuppance of Delon's cocksure womanizer. The jazzy Lalo Schifrin score is first rate, accenting an already super cool nouvelle vague vibe. Surprised this film doesn't have much of a reputation, it's a real kick.

Review by maya ★★★½ 1

there will never be a man just as beautiful as alain delon

Review by penny lane ★★★★ 1

This was really hard to find and I did not expect to like it so but this really came as a surprise to me. This René Clément film is an underrated gem in the thriller genre. With stunning visuals by Henri Dacaë, ace performances by Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, and Lola Albright accompanied by that swinging score? this was a package!

I also have got to mention the stunt scenes with Delon here. Seriously, the amount of times he almost got ran over by a vehicle here were sending me quivers. And dang Jane Fonda, if I were to choose between a mansion in the French Riviera and Alain Delon, I'd also definitely choose both! lol

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Joy House Reviews

Alain Delon remains a success story I fail to comprehend.

Full Review | Mar 16, 2020

Though Joy House, with its pyramid of tricks, chases, surprises, secret panels - the lot - never quite thinks to poke the finger of fun at itself, viewers make no such mistake.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2020

Full of hooey.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 27, 2015

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 15, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 82/100 | Sep 26, 2002

Where to Watch

Alain Delon (Marc Borel) Jane Fonda (Melinda) Lola Albright (Barbara Hill) Carl Studer (Loftus) Sorrell Booke (Harry) André Oumansky (Vincent) Arthur Howard (Father Nielson) George Gaynes (Mac Kee - the mob boss) Annette Poivre (Employee) Berett Arcaya (Diana)

René Clément

A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women.

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Joy house blu-ray review.

Joy House (1964)

Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller Kino Lorber| NR – 97 min. – $29.95 | May 23, 2023

Date Published: 06/09/2023 | Author: The Movieman

Kino Lorber provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.

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Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

• Top Ten Lists
• Post author: eenableadmin
• Post published: August 5, 2019
• Post category: Uncategorized

JOY HOUSE (LES FELINS)

(director/writer: Rene Clement ; screenwriters: Pascal Jardin/Charles Williams/based on the novel by Day Keene ; cinematographer: Henri Decaë ; editor: Fedora Zincone; music: Lalo Schifrin; cast: Jane Fonda ( Melinda ), Alain Delon (Marc), Lola Albright (Barbara), Carl Studer (Leftus), Sorrel Booke (Harry), Andre Oumansky (Vincent), Arthur Howard (Rev. Nielson) ; Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Jacques Bar ; MGM; 1964)

“F ull of hooey.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A steamy drama written and directed by the esteemed French filmmaker Rene Clement (“The Damned”/”Purple Noon”/”Forbidden Games”), that’s full of hooey. It’s based on the novel by Day Keene. Co-writers are Pascal Jardin and Charles Williams. If nothing else, it at least cleverly blends together French and American styles.

Small-town con artist and lover boy, Marc ( Alain Delon ), is on the run in the French Rivera from an American gangster. He escapes a hit in Monte Carlo and then while in a flophouse soup line the derelict manages to get a chauffeur gig for the mansion living American widowed Barbara ( Lola Albright ) and her sexy American cousin Melinda (Jane Fonda). We soon learn that Barbara’s hubby was bumped off by her lover Vincent ( Andre Oumansky ), who hides in the attic. The scheming widow is hoping the authorities will think Marc is her lover and therefore arrest him instead of her real boyfriend. Complications arise when the blackmailing Melinda falls for Marc.

If ever a title was wrongly named, this is the one.

REVIEWED ON 7/24/2015 GRADE: C+

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Joy House 06/06/23

Gangsters, murder, sex and intrigue on the French Riviera!  René Clément’s overheated thriller touches all the bases, dropping Alain Delon’s fugitive playboy into a chateau henhouse with the enticing Lola Albright and Jane Fonda. It’s a twisted tale directed in high style, with Delon caught in a very Tight Spot but thinking he can outsmart his two female companions. All it needed was a character we really care about. Gaumont’s fine remaster gives us the show in two language versions. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics . 06/06/23

Cast & Crew

Alain Delon

Lola Albright

Sorrell Booke

Carl Studer

• Average 6.3

Information

© 1964 Kino Lorber

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Joy House (1964) Stream and Watch Online

Watch 'Joy House' Online

Want to watch ' Joy House ' in the comfort of your own home? Tracking down a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the René Clément-directed movie via subscription can be confusing, so we here at Moviefone want to help you out. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription alternatives - along with the availability of 'Joy House' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the fundamentals of how you can watch 'Joy House' right now, here are some details about the Cité Films Compagnie Internationale de Productions Cinématographiques CIPRA thriller flick. Released November 1st, 1964, 'Joy House' stars Alain Delon , Jane Fonda , Lola Albright , Sorrell Booke The NR movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 37 min, and received a user score of 66 (out of 100) on TMDb, which collated reviews from 69 well-known users. Interested in knowing what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "A smalltime con man on the run from the gangsterhusband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange brooding mansion run by two mysterious women where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women" 'Joy House' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, and YouTube .

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Film Review: ‘Joy’

The mop is miraculous. David O. Russell's latest movie, not so much.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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After wholeheartedly embracing the art of the con in “American Hustle,” David O. Russell shifts gears and celebrates the virtues of honesty, grit and can-do spirit with “ Joy ,” a more constrained and significantly less inspired seriocomic romp cobbled together from the life of Joy Mangano, the woman who invented the Miracle Mop and turned it into a home-shopping phenomenon. If a “Eureka!” moment in the history of the household cleaning industry seems a less-than-intuitive premise for a mainstream feature film, rest assured that Russell has stretched this heavily fictionalized material about as far as it could go, though he stops well short of the screwball delirium and emotional liftoff he achieved in his recent string of triumphs. Despite another solid performance from Jennifer Lawrence , anchoring Russell’s sincerely felt tribute to the power of a woman’s resolve in a man’s world, it’s hard not to wish “Joy” were better — that its various winsome parts added up to more than a flyweight product that still feels stuck in the development stage.

Much has already been made about the fact that Russell — always a fan of sharply written, exuberantly played female characters, going back to “Spanking the Monkey” and “Flirting With Disaster” — has now written and directed his first picture centered wholly around a woman. Even in a year that has seen a refreshing uptick in distaff-centric Hollywood narratives (in front of the camera, anyway), that virtue that should lend “Joy” some counter-programming heft opposite the more male-skewing likes of “The Revenant” and “The Hateful Eight,” both also opening Christmas Day. And Lawrence, presently sitting atop the box office in the fourth and final installment of the “Hunger Games” franchise, should drive curious audiences toward this welcome alternative showcase for her ever-expanding range as an actress.

Popular on Variety

There’s a touch of “Erin Brockovich” and a smattering of “Mildred Pierce” in the story (credited to Russell and Annie Mumolo) of a smart, resourceful, working-class single mom defying considerable odds to seize her entrepreneurial moment, and meeting with shaky support and stubborn resistance from her family and outsiders in the process. And Russell, unspooling this rags-to-riches fable in a tone of mocking affection, riffs on two of the storytelling modes that have been historically and often disparagingly reserved for women: the fairy tale and the soap opera. Unfolding mainly in an unspecified Rust Belt town during the 1980s and ’90s, the movie frames its heroine’s story with an amusing sendup of a long-running daytime TV serial (populated by such game, Emmy-winning icons of the medium as Susan Lucci, Laura Wright and Maurice Benard), while the gentle storybook narration of Joy’s beloved grandmother, Mimi (the great Diane Ladd, another soap veteran), bobs and weaves in and out of the narrative.

Mimi has long been a pillar of strength for Joy (Lawrence), and a necessary counterweight to the influence of her long-divorced parents, both of whom are decidedly in their own worlds. Her shut-in mother, Carrie (Virginia Madsen), spends her entire life in bed, her eyes glued to the aforementioned show, and her father, Rudy ( Robert De Niro ), is a much-married blue-collar crank who’s just been dumped by his latest squeeze. With nowhere else to turn, Rudy moves into Joy’s already crowded house, crashing in the basement along with Joy’s ex-husband, Tony (Edgar Ramirez), a hunky Venezuelan singer with whom she has two young kids. In short, it’s another of Russell’s classic fractious families, the sort of bickersome clan that leaves the floor covered in broken crockery in the first five minutes of screen time, and the movie has fun using strategically positioned dream sequences and flashbacks to illuminate how Joy got to this difficult point — and how she might move past it.

She may be the glue holding together this tangled mess of dysfunction, but Joy is destined for greater things than working with her mean-spirited half-sister, Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm), at their dad’s auto shop — something she’s instinctively known since she was a young girl (played by Isabella Crovetti-Cramp), cutting and pasting together intricate paper dioramas in her bedroom. And that long-dormant creativity re-emerges when she has to mop up an unusually messy spill one afternoon, handily demonstrating that necessity is the mother (rather than the father) of invention: In one enchanting sequence, Joy uses her daughter’s crayons to draw the preliminary blueprints for a plastic-handled, self-wringing mop, the only product of its kind that customers will ever need to buy.

The words “Miracle Mop” — or “Mangano,” for that matter — are never actually uttered here, suggesting that “Joy” is unfolding in roughly the same realm of altered names, composite characters, rejiggered time frames and loosely fact-inspired truthiness that begat “American Hustle.” Yet despite the air of lightly comic exaggeration that attends the whole enterprise, there’s a certain hard-edged rigor to the way Russell lays out the innumerable challenges of launching one’s own business. Joy is fortunate to have a begrudging source of capital in the form of Rudy’s wealthy new squeeze, Trudy (a delightful Isabella Rossellini), who locates a sketchy California company willing to manufacture parts on the cheap (or so they think). But then there’s the problem of distribution, as Kmart and other retail stores prove unwilling to devote floor space to such an expensive ($19.95 a mop) and potentially game-changing product.

The movie hits its stride, at least temporarily, when the ever-helpful Tony lands Joy a meeting with Neil Walker ( Bradley Cooper ), an executive for the TV network QVC — at the time, a relatively new commercial phenomenon that allows celebrity sellers (including Joan Rivers, played by her daughter Melissa) to bring the latest merchandise directly into their customers’ homes. (This subplot allows the Fox production to plunder some of the studio’s corporate history, including references to former chief Barry Diller’s acquisition of QVC.) And Cooper, who achieved such arresting, live-wire chemistry with Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook,” downplays effectively here as a cautious, mild-mannered, business-first type who spends most of his screen time patiently teaching this novice the rules of the call-in commerce game. But Joy’s confidence ultimately persuades Neil to put not only the product but also the inventor herself on the air, paving the way for a suspenseful, even blissful comic payoff in which we see this hard-working self-starter come fully and radiantly into her own.

These scenes find an ideal balance between self-fulfillment comic fantasy and gritty, workaday realism, and “Joy” benefits from its focus on the mundane; it’s a marvel how much quiet emotion Lawrence manages to wring, so to speak, as she speaks lovingly about her mop and its unprecedented 300 feet of super-absorbent, hand-coiled cotton. But after that peak, the movie begins to flatten out as Joy’s ever-shifting fortunes tug her this way and that, while a succession of broken promises and cruel betrayals lead her from overnight sales success to the brink of bankruptcy, before her eventual rebirth as a new kind of familial and corporate matriarch. The swift, tidy reversals that bring the story to its fairy-tale conclusion feel unpredictable yet also somewhat arbitrary, and Russell, seemingly uncertain as to when to call it quits, seems content to end things on an optimistic shrug.

The aim seems to have been to weave various familiar Russellian elements — offbeat comedy, familial discord, wheeling-and-dealing chicanery, and a playful hint of make-believe — into a loving testament to the ways in which women survive, and thrive, even in a world actively devoted to keeping them in their place. But at a certain point, “Joy’s” grand ambitions and feminist underpinnings can’t disguise the essential lack of dramatic purpose or direction at the movie’s core. Russell is known for finding his fast, frenzied movies in the cutting room, a tactic that has rarely let him down in the past, but the same brilliance eludes him here. With no fewer than four editors credited, you have to wonder if the continual whittling and reshaping of scenes ultimately whittled away what was most interesting about Joy Mangano’s story in the first place. (Mangano is credited as an exec producer here.)

In “American Hustle,” the narrative hiccups and evasions felt of a piece with the movie’s madly dissembling, improvisatory spirit; it was a movie about the exhilaration of self-reinvention that got by on pure rambunctious rhythm and attitude. But “Joy,” in celebrating a figure known for her gumption and perseverance, feels tamer, blander and less certain of its footing. The rhythms are slightly off from the start, and try as he might, Russell can’t quite unlock either the grand human comedy or the gritty working-class melodrama within. And Lawrence, such a blazing revelation in “Hustle” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” gives a performance that’s easy enough to root for but much less jagged and distinctive than her earlier work; always flinty, emotionally accessible and pleasurable to watch, she nevertheless seems to be embodying some vague, free-floating spirit of sisterhood rather than a character we feel we’ve come to know intimately by movie’s end.

In a similar vein, the supporting cast doesn’t have quite the same snap and cohesion we’ve come to expect from Russell’s earlier, multi-Oscar-nominated ensembles. Rohm, in particular, has been either misdirected or miscast as the competitive older sister whose attitude toward Joy feels needlessly antagonistic and one-note. But the other actors fare better, even when their various comic non sequiturs feel a bit shoehorned in; Madsen and Rossellini have endearingly loopy moments, De Niro knows the lovable-curmudgeon routine inside out; Dascha Polanco steals a scene or two as Joy’s unswervingly loyal best friend; and Ladd simply makes you grateful to see her in her first significant big-screen appearance in years. Cooper can still generate enough of a spark with Lawrence to make you wish he had more screen time, though her truer partner here is Ramirez as Charlie — a winsome Desi to her Lucy, offering genial evidence that amicable divorces make for the most enduring friendships. At the very least, “Joy’s” contribution to the understaffed ranks of supportive on-screen husbands has to count as progress of a sort.

Reviewed at Fox Studios, Century City, Calif., Nov. 29, 2015. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 123 MIN.

• Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a Fox 2000 Pictures presentation, in association with Annapurna Pictures, of a Davis Entertainment Co./10 by 10 Entertainment production. Produced by John Davis, Ken Mok, Megan Ellison, Jonathan Gordon, David O. Russell. Executive producers, Matthew Budman, John Fox, Mary McLagen, Joy Mangano, George Parra, Annie Mumolo, Ethan Smith. Co-producer, Michele Ziegler.
• Crew: Directed, written by David O. Russell; story, Annie Mumolo, Russell. Camera (color), Linus Sandgren; editors, Jay Cassidy, Alan Baumgarten, Christopher Tellefsen, Tom Cross; music, West Dylan Thordson, David Campbell; music supervisor, Susan Jacobs; production designer, Judy Becker; art director, Peter Rogness; set decorator, Heather Loeffler; costume designer, Michael Wilkinson; sound, Jose Antonio Garcia; sound designer, Jason King; supervising sound editor, John Ross; re-recording mixers, Ross, Christian Minkler; special effects coordinator, Judson Bell; visual effects producer, David Robinson; visual effects, Lola VFX, Mammal Studios, Psyop, Cos FX Films, Space Monkey; stunt coordinator, Ben Bray; assistant director, Michelle "Shelley" Ziegler; casting, Mary Vernieu, Lindsay Graham.
• With: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco, Elisabeth Rohm, Susan Lucci, Laura Wright, Maurice Benard, Donna Mills, Bradley Cooper, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Ken Howard, Ray de la Paz, John Enos, Marianne Leone, Melissa Rivers, Drena De Niro, Isabella Crovetti-Cramp. (English, Spanish dialogue)

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Joy House Reviews

• 1 hr 38 mins
• Drama, Comedy, Suspense
• Watchlist Where to Watch

Mixture of chills and chuckles in and around a Gothic chateau peopled by misfits. Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, Lola Albright. Loftus: Carl Studer. Harry: Sorrel Booke. Directed by Rene Clement.

This French production features Delon as a man on the run. He has had an affair with the wife of a top New York mobster and must flee for his life. Albright finds him hiding in a mission for the poor and hires him as her chauffeur. While at the chateau, he meets Albright's niece, Fonda, and discovers Oumansky, Albright's lover. (Oumansky, who has murdered Albright's husband, must now hide in the chateau.) At this point Albright and Oumansky plot to kill Delon to get his passport, thus enabling Oumansky to escape to South America. But Delon and Albright have an affair, and when Oumansky discovers this he kills Albright instead. Subsequently Oumansky is killed by the gangsters who mistake him for Delon. Fonda and Delon are hiding the bodies when she learns he plans to leave without her. She therefore dupes the police into believing Delon is guilty of the murders, and he must now hide in the chateau (like Oumansky before him). The confusing plot, unfolding in an uneven mix of American- and French-style filmmaking, just doesn't work, and the film quickly becomes incomprehensible and dull. Fonda is all wrong for the part, and the talents of Delon and Albright are completely wasted. Famed director Costa-Gavras served as an assistant director.

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Joy Mangano is the humble-roots woman who became an industry of household inventions (mainly, the Miracle Mop, although she holds over 100 patents)—not an obvious choice for a biopic. Perhaps only director David O. Russell could see the potential in it, boosted by his fascination with Jennifer Lawrence , who plays Mangano. 

“Joy” demands that the audience become emotionally invested in a mop. It’s ridiculous. “Joy” doesn’t work entirely, and the structure set up so clearly in the opening sequence is dropped early on for no apparent reason, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t get carried away at the story of a mop sweeping the nation. It’s a lunatic “Mildred Pierce," without the murder. 

“Joy” starts as a fable about a little girl who liked to make things, narrated in an epic tone by her loving grandmother Mimi ( Diane Ladd ). The narration is so strong at the start, that it’s noticeable when it disappears. It feels sloppy as opposed to deliberate. Diane Ladd, set up as the crucial “witness” to her granddaughter’s hidden gifts, vanishes for the majority of the film. It’s not clear why. When Mimi’s narration returns, you had forgotten that it was used as a device in the first place. It’s an interruption rather than a continuation. “Joy” makes its way forward through stylistic stops and starts. It can’t settle down.

Joy doesn’t see herself the way her grandmother sees her: she derailed her life early by marrying a Tom Jones wannabe ( Édgar Ramírez , in a hilarious and surprisingly touching performance), having two kids with him, getting divorced but then remaining friends. Now she lives in a rickety house with her entire extended family, including her ex-husband who hangs out in the basement in a tuxedo singing 1970s power-ballads into a microphone. Her mother ( Virginia Madsen ) lies in her bed all day watching soap operas. (Real soap opera stars, Susan Lucci, Laura Wright, Donna Mills , appear in re-creations, an entertaining device that is not developed, similar to the voiceover). Joy’s father (played by Robert De Niro ) shows up at the door one day, thrown out of the house by his new wife, needing a place to stay. Meanwhile, the grandmother peeks around corners whispering inspirational thoughts at her harried granddaughter. 

One day, Joy draws a picture with her daughter’s crayons of a revolutionary mop. She hits up her dad’s new rich girlfriend Trudy (Isabella Rosselini) for the cash to start up a small business. But, Joy has no luck selling her new invention. Enter Bradley Cooper as Neil Walker, a slick, soft-talking executive producer at QVC. Neil looks upon Joy as an amateur-hour open-mike-night kind of inventor; he decides to give her a shot on television. To increase her inventory, Joy hastily sets up an assembly line in her father’s body shop. Along the way, she deals with sketchy manufacturers, Trudy's increasingly angry-mogul demands about her investment, and the very real urgency that her house is falling apart and she can’t afford a plumber. 

“Joy” features chaotic family scenes with the let-the-camera-find-the-action quality familiar from Russell’s other family comedies like “The Silver Linings Playbook,” “Flirting with Disaster,” “ I Heart Huckabees ” and sections of “ The Fighter ,” with the scowling rogues gallery of practically identical sisters like something out of a fairy-tale. They make for the funniest scenes in “Joy"—De Niro smashing knick-knacks, Ramirez throwing in comments from off-screen, Madsen wailing like a martyr from her day-bed, and Ladd whispering New Age-y encouragement. These scenes have real energy. One shot is so funny (the camera moving down the basement stairs into the ex-husband’s lair) that it’s a reminder of what inventive camerawork can achieve. 

Russell has directed Jennifer Lawrence three times now (“ Silver Linings Playbook ,” “ American Hustle ,” and now “Joy”), and once to an Oscar (her first, for "Silver Linings Playbook"). The “Hunger Games” franchise is so enormous that it’s sometimes easy to forget “Winter’s Bone," which brought Lawrence to a wide audience (as well as her first Oscar nod). In “Winter’s Bone” she brought a naturalism and a gravitas far beyond her years. Her public persona is entertaining in an old-fashioned way: she would have killed on Johnny Carson, in the way Burt Reynolds used to kill in his appearances. Late-night talk shows and press conferences feature so many obedient performers plugging their project that Lawrence’s appearances seem even more anarchic than they already are. In this way, she’s reminiscent of Carole Lombard , a glittering natural comedienne onscreen, and a trash-talking sailor off-screen. David O. Russell taps into that,. Perhaps, even most importantly, he saw that potential in Lawrence in the first place.

Being obsessed with your lead actress is sometimes seen as a director playing Svengali or Henry Higgins, or evidence that the director has lost his “objectivity” (as though objectivity is the mark of a good director.) But so much richness has come out of that kind of obsession. Josef von Sternberg was so obsessed with Marlene Dietrich that he introduced her to the world. Howard Hawks was so invested in his imaginary ideal woman (insolent, feminine but not soft) that he plucked Lauren Bacall out of obscurity and gave her the lead role opposite Humphrey Bogart in “To Have and Have Not,” one of the most extraordinary screen debuts in cinema history. Woody Allen ’s partnership with Diane Keaton cemented her position as an awkward leading lady. Christian Petzold ’s films with Nina Hoss have been one of the most important contemporary collaborations, highlighting what Nina Hoss can do as an actress (which is everything). David O. Russell’s obsession with Lawrence is similar. He sees her in a way other directors hadn’t. He got how funny she was. He saw her Classic Leading Lady potential, even though she has been too young for almost all of the parts he has cast her in (true of “Joy” as well, where she has to age 20 years). 

When Lawrence, as Joy, stands on the brightly lit QVC stage, frozen in fear at the cameras, and then gathers herself together to rant about her Miracle Mop, the conviction in the monologue is so strong that an organic flush actually rises in Lawrence’s cheeks. Joy’s mop, and its potential, make her emotional, and that emotion translates because Lawrence herself believes in it so strongly. There are similar sequences: Joy letting off steam at a makeshift shooting range, and a standoff scene in a Texas hotel. The final moment shows Lawrence walking towards the camera in slo-mo, her chopped hair bouncing in her face, putting on her hip sunglasses. The moment goes on forever, but Russell can’t get enough of it. As Pauline Kael said of Barbra Streisand in her review of “ Funny Girl ”:

“ In life, fantastically gifted people, people who are driven, can be too much to handle; they can be a pain. In plays, in opera, they’re divine, and on the screen, where they can be seen in their perfection, and where we’re even safer from them, they’re more divine. ”

“Joy” is pretty ridiculous, and there are long sections of it that don’t work. It’s obviously a star vehicle for Lawrence, but if anyone deserves a vehicle, she does.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

124 minutes

Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano

Diane Ladd as Mimi

Virginia Madsen as Carrie

Robert De Niro as Rudy

Bradley Cooper as Neil Walker

Dascha Polanco as Jackie

Edgar Ramírez as Tony Miranne

Elisabeth Röhm as Peggy

Isabella Rossellini as Trudy

• David O. Russell
• Annie Mumolo

Director of Photography

• Linus Sandgren
• Alan Baumgarten
• Jay Cassidy
• Christopher Tellefsen

Production Design

• Judy Becker

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• DVD & Streaming
• Comedy , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

• December 25, 2015
• Jennifer Lawrence as Joy; Robert De Niro as Rudy; Elisabeth Röhm as Peggy; Édgar Ramírez as Tony Miranne; Virginia Madsen as Carrie; Dascha Polanco as Jackie; Isabella Rossellini as Trudy; Diane Ladd as Mimi; Bradley Cooper as QVC Executive

Home Release Date

• May 3, 2016
• David O. Russell

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

For most of her life, Joy’s name seemed somewhat ironic.

Oh, she started out joyful enough. She loved making things as a child—stories, songs, dioramas folded from paper. Her grandmother, “Mimi,” told her she was destined for greatness. And who was Joy to contradict wise, old Gran?

But when life’s realities meet life’s possibilities, the realities tend to beat up the possibilities and steal their lunch money. Joy’s parents divorce. She’s her high school’s valedictorian, but she skips college to care for her mother and do bookkeeping for her dad. She gets married … and gets divorced. By her mid-20s, her life looks nothing like her paper dioramas. She works for an airline but detests every minute of it. Her house is full of people who need taking care of. Her children. Her mother, who subsists on a steady diet of soap operas. Even her ex-husband, Tony, who still lives in the basement as he just keeps on warming up for his nonexistent singing career. Oh, and Joy’s father, Rudy, is moving in, too, which means he’ll need to share that basement with Tony (the two men despise each other) and the house with his ex-wife (who loathes the very sight of him).

Joy? Maybe she should consider a name change. Despair has a nice ring to it.

But then one night, after mopping up a mess of wine and broken glasses—shredding her hands as she tries to wring out the mop—she has an epiphany: Wouldn’t it be great if there was a mop head you could wring out without touching it? A mop head you could just chuck into the washing machine when it got dirty?

She starts sketching out some ideas in her daughter’s bedroom and, before long, she thinks she’s made something special. Something, dare we say, revolutionary.

Lots of life’s realities stand in the way of this great idea. She has no money, for one thing. If she even got the mop made, she has no place to sell it. But this time, Joy’s determined to make good on the possibility. This time, reality’s going to have to chill and earn its own lunch money for once.

Positive Elements

The movie (based, somewhat loosely, on the life of inventor and eventual Home Shopping Network star Joy Mangano) suggests that Joy has been “hiding,” like a cicada, for about 17 years—ever since her parents divorced, in fact. But hiding or no, she’s been a pretty decent person during that time. She’s a good mother—a job doubly hard when you’re a single mom, like Joy is. And she serves as a sort of mommy for many of the other people in her life, too. Her home is open to whichever family member might need it, no matter the pain or discomfort it might cause her personally.

Granted, sometimes accepting the sort of generosity Joy displays can become a crutch for people. And Joy, once she decides to invent her mop, comes to understand that. So she (quite rightly) tells Tony and Rudy that they’ll have to move out.

Joy tries to include her family in her new business as much as possible. But when their business decisions nearly lead the whole lot of ’em into bankruptcy, she grows tough and resourceful. And throughout the process, she absolutely refuses to accept failure—pushing relentlessly against the walls thrown up around her until they all come down, one after the other.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Once Joy manages to squelch financial ruin, she’s still deeply appreciative of where she came from. She cares for her family (even when, we’re told, they tried to wrest control of her company away from her). She stays on good terms with Tony. And when fledgling inventors come to pitch their products to this one-woman conglomerate, she treats them with the respect she wishes she had been given back in the day.

Spiritual Elements

In flashback, we see Tony and Joy get married in a church. Joy’s first workers are brought in by a Catholic priest. When someone close to Joy dies, a vision of the person seems to snuggle in beside her during the funeral service and hold her hand. A soap opera character also comes back as a ghost.

Sexual Content

Women wear formfitting garb. Tony begins dating a wealthy woman named Trudy—finding her by way of a 900 number for widows and widowers. When Joy is about to display her mop on the home shopping channel QVC, Joan Rivers recommends that she wear a skirt to show off her legs.

Violent Content

As mentioned, when wringing out a mop, Joy cuts herself on broken glass. (Relatives pick out shards from her hands with tweezers.) Despondent, Joy violently rips down drawings of her mop, making her daughter cry. Frustrated, Joy goes outside her father’s auto shop to the makeshift shooting range next door and takes down a handful of glass bottles. Rudy breaks several knickknacks and carelessly destroys some origami creations. In the soap that Connie watches, one woman offers a gun to another, encouraging her to use it on someone. Trudy asks Joy whether she’d be (hypothetically) willing to shoot someone who would try to take her investment money. (Joy says she would.)

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word. We also hear a small spattering of these curses: “a–,” “b–ch,” and “d–n.” God’s name is heedlessly exclaimed a half-dozen or more times.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Joy, exhausted beyond reason, is dosed with children’s cough syrup in an effort to get her to go to sleep without dreaming, and someone talks about giving her a hot toddy as well. Tony brings a case of red wine aboard Trudy’s boat. Champagne toasts are offered and drunk. Rudy tells Trudy that she’s “banana flambé with extra rum.” Someone expresses a longing for vodka.

Other Negative Elements

People routinely try to take advantage of Joy—none worse than her parts manufacturers in California. They make mistakes on her plans, overcharge for parts and, when the product becomes successful, raise their rates to the point that each successful sale would drive Joy further into debt. When she travels to California herself to straighten the matter out, Joy discovers that they’re trying to steal her patent and then have her arrested for trespassing. Deeply jealous of Joy’s success, her half-sister seems to collude with those scoundrels.

Joy and her friends sometimes use trickery to stir interest in Joy’s invention. At Joy and Tony’s wedding, Rudy stands up and offers a profane, vicious toast insulting his ex-wife and Tony, giving the marriage a very public “50-50 chance.”

Director David O. Russell has plumbed his partnership with Jennifer Lawrence (star of The Hunger Games movies) and Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) for a boatload of critical acclaim. In 2012, the Cooper/Lawrence pairing in Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook brought in eight Oscar nominations and earned Lawrence her first Academy Award. Their next collaboration, 2013’s American Hustle , was showered with 10 more Oscar noms.

Alas, both of those movies were horrifically problematic, too. Silver Linings was littered with 80 f-words and some of the most violent scenes ever found in a romantic comedy. Hustle lowered the bar even more, with 100-plus f-words uttered by some deeply loathsome characters.

So for discerning viewers curious about the Russell/Lawrence/Cooper juggernaut but wisely wary of that sort of salaciousness, Joy might be reason for, if not joy, then at least a bit of satisfaction. Turns out, the three of them can also make a, well, let’s just call it a vaguely family-friendly movie. (That one f-word is a problem, still, as are a few other content issues.)

Joy will likely not rake in the Oscars the previous two collaborations did. The story is strangely disjointed—a somewhat surreal comedy at first that slowly morphs into a family/business drama. But Russell still shows off his eye for the humorously ludicrous here, and Lawrence and Cooper (though the latter is very much a supporting star, despite the prominence of his name in the advertising) are as charismatic as ever.

In Lawrence’s Joy we meet an everyday hero—someone as strong and determined in her own way as Lawrence’s Katniss, someone who fights for a better life for both herself and her family.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Joy House (Les Felins) [DVD]

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Product Description

Also Includes Added Bonus: French language version of Joy House ("Les Félins) with optional English subtitles

Besides showcasing Barbarella-era Jane Fonda in one of her sexiest roles, Réné Clément’s thriller Joy House offers enough psychological suspense to count as horror. In it, Marc (Alain Délon of Purple Noon) agrees to indentured servitude to two women, Melinda (Jane Fonda) and her Aunt Barbara (Lola Albright) who hide him from police following a crime he has committed. Though the ladies appear from the outset to have renounced corruption for a life of monastic charity, their catfights over Marc result in his being trapped inside their castle, glamorously located in the French Riviera. The harder he tries to escape, the more he realizes he is trapped in the web woven by these two spider-like villainesses. Joy House’s suspense is wrapped in elegance. The stars, its settings, and the film’s score by Lalo Schifrin lifts it out of the B-movie, Hammer-film haunted house tale category. Like so many classic horror movies, most of the action takes place in a grand chateau, allowing Joy House to revel in its sense of claustrophobia. This recalls Mario Bava films, such as Black Sabbath and Hatchet for the Honeymoon , though the sexual tension implicit to Joy House is more akin to Jean Rollin’s movies, which focus as much on physical attraction as impending death. It also recalls Mommie Dearest or All About Eve , in which an elderly female competes with the younger for attention. Mirrored closet doors and reflective furniture throughout the mansion, as well as car rear-views, emphasize deception thematically in an especially Giallo way. However, there is zero gore here, and this film shies away from direct violence in favor of the implied, which is more in line with its sexually deviant undertow. -- Trinie Dalton

Product details

• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 2.35:1
• Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches; 2.4 ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ René Clément
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ Subtitled, Dolby, NTSC, Black & White, DVD, Widescreen
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 37 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ August 5, 2008
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Jane Fonda, Alain Delon, Lola Albright
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Koch Lorber Films
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00199PPB0
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #4,155 in Foreign Films (Movies & TV)
• #11,323 in Mystery & Thrillers (Movies & TV)
• #34,106 in Drama DVDs

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