David O. Russell specializes in making movies about isolated universes of extremely strange behavior, and making their worlds plausible. Whether his pockets of creation include corporations (I Heart Huckabees), cross state boundaries (Flirting with Disaster), or depict war (Three Kings), Russell’s worlds felt separate from the real world as we know it, creating their own alternate reality. Beginning with The Fighter, his films have become “what if David O. Russell made [insert audience-friendly genre here]?” What is David O. made a sports drama, a rom-com, a con movie, or, now, a rags to riches tale?

David O. Russell’s movies are actually high wire acts flirting with stereotypically Sundance quirkfests. Fail to balance the quirk with the plausibility, and suddenly you could have the next Little Miss Sunshine obnoxious quirkfest on your hands. With Joy, David O. Russell falls into the abyss. The world he sets up is quirky to the point of implausibility until he attempts to pivot on a dime in the second half, never quite making the rebound.

Joy is based on/inspired by the true story of Joy Mangano (who is credited as an exec. producer), creator of the QVC smash hit product Miracle Mop. When we meet Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) – a middle-aged (real life Joy was ~35) divorced mother-of-two living with her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) in the basement, her divorced mother (Virginia Madsen) in the living room, her grandmother (Diane Ladd), and her two daughters – she’s trying to get to work as an airline ticket agent while sending her children to a party and situating her just-arrived father (Robert DeNiro) in the basement after he was kicked out of his now-ex-girlfriend’s house. If that whole overly complicated situation seems unnatural and surreal, David O. Russell never manages to bring it into reality. Instead of crafting characters who fit into each others molds in ways that seem antagonistic, Russell’s characters seem like they’re walking plot devices given quirky self-serving lines that are intended to be more funny than revealing.

David O. Russell’s method of making the situation more palatable is to pile quirks on top of quirks. Her husband is a swarthy Hispanic lounge singer who has a business head on his shoulders but can’t figure out how to make money. Fictional Joy is a woman who dropped out of college to take care of her family, but never resorts to working with her father’s auto and body shop business. Her father is a constant lover, who quickly picks up a new millionaire widow, Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), who doesn’t dump him the moment they ruin her bleached Teak deck.  Joy’s mom is all but bed-ridden, holing up in her bedroom and shunning the outside world. Joy’s whole family is obsessed with a fictional soap opera (think Twin Peaks‘ internal Invitation to Love, but tackier) which seems to be on at all hours of the day. Her half-sister is bitter at Joy…for some reason. It’s a pile of quirks that never ever cohere into a singular universe. Out of this pile of neurotic dysfunction, Joy emerges with the idea for the Miracle Mop. Joy has to navigate the wilds of her family, all of whom seem intent on lifting her up just enough to watch her fail.

That Russell is creating the chaos to give Joy something to rise above doesn’t forgive the incoherence of Russell’s universe. By the time Joy makes it to QVC, meeting president of sales Bradley Cooper, it almost seems that Russell finally found his footing. But, he’s still hampered by a fatal flaw in Jennifer Lawrence. Even though Lawrence is a pleasure to watch, and turns in a reliably great performance, at 25 she is simply too young to be playing 35-year-old Joy Margano. She doesn’t possess the maturity, frustration, or world-weariness that such a character would have.

Yet, I found myself liking the movie in spite of all its flaws. It’s a feel-good rags-to-riches hagiography of a woman whose whole point is to become a corporation. It’s The American Dream incarnate. It has all the usual bad moves that come with that type of movie. Yet, seeing a movie where a woman matures and becomes her own success without becoming a complete and utter bitch is a refreshing change of pace. Joy never loses sight of her family, or has to make decisions between the two. Jennifer Lawrence, Diane Ladd, and Edgar Ramirez are all fantastic. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren knows how to frame an image and make everything seem like a revelation. If only all of this could have been in service of a great movie.