Listen When Your Inner Child Screams
(Review of the New Movie Joy)

I attended an advanced media screening of the new movie Joy earlier this week. It is a really great movie. It starts off a bit campy with some soap opera integration in the movie. Hang in there though…it makes sense after a while. One of the main things that I took away from this movie was that it’s so important to have people in your life that believe in you. Joy’s immediate family was a mess. Her mother, father and step-sister did not build her up at all. Rather, they tore her down and really used her in a lot of ways. The mother was so needy to the point that Joy was taking care of her mom instead of vice versa. Although taking care of your parents is a great thing when they are really in need, that was not the case in this movie! Joy’s father had his issues in the movie too. (Although I love Robert DeNiro as an actor, his character Rudy was not a very good father in this movie.)

Fortunately for Joy, there were several people in her life that really loved and supported her – including her grandmother Mimi, ex-husband Tony and best friend Jackie. Joy’s grandmother Mimi had such a great vision for Joy’s life even when it seemed as if Joy’s life had gone off course. Joy’s ex-husband Tony wasn’t a great husband but it was obvious that he loved and supported Joy. Even though their love story didn’t have a traditional happy ending, Tony believed in her and supported her dreams. (My friend Gloria who went with me to the advanced screening adored his character because Édgar Ramírez who acts as Tony is Venezuelan. He grew up close to Gloria’s family geographically so she was super excited every time that he came on the screen. It was very cute!)

The other thing that I really appreciated about the movie was the point that it made regarding the importance of staying in touch with your inner child. Without being all “woo woo”, I do believe that the desires of our hearts are the simplest and most pure when we are kids…before reality and other societal influences have the potential to warp our dreams. Sometimes that inner child whispers to us. Sometimes it screams…like Joy’s inner child did. Fortunately, Joy listened! The movie was very inspiring because it showed that it doesn’t matter how long you forget whom you are and the hopes that you once had. You can still remember them, believe in them and do the work required to make them come true.

Joy was really smart and creative. She was the valedictorian of her high school class but she put her college dreams on hold to help her family. Many people do that in real life but it was wonderful to see that even if you put your dreams on hold for a (long) while, you can still live them out in due time. While it was obvious that hard work and smarts had a lot to do with Joy’s success, it was also obvious that she didn’t do it on her own. She had people who believed in her and a business person who was willing to give her a chance. No one becomes a “success” on their own. At the same time, Joy worked really hard for her dreams to come true. She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and she really put everything on the line financially and emotionally.

Another sweet part of the Joy movie was how Joy’s daughter saw her mom build something and make it great. I didn’t even realize that Joy Mangano (whose life story was the basis of the movie) invented the Miracle Mop. I just knew of her as the lady behind Huggable Hangers. Overall, my friend Gloria and I thought that Joy was a very encouraging movie. The new movie Joy is in theaters now so I suggest that you see it with a girlfriend, significant other or tween/teen daughter over the holiday break. Enjoy! 🙂