Joy

I think this is supposed to be an uplifting story, and I guess if you only look at pieces here and there, it works on that level. Eventually, it gets to where you think it’s going. But there’s so much in the way of downers along the way that, ultimately, the total effect is something less than it should be. You get the usual good work from the David O. Russell Players--at this point, I’m not sure if either Jennifer Lawrence or Bradley Cooper is capable of a bad performance--but this one turns out to be a little less than the sum of its parts. Not bad, to be sure--just not what it could have been.