In the company of Jen
Two films, two wildly different styles, one great star…
Consider: a small-town girl, thrown into the limelight. She must perform for the cameras, stand her ground against advisers and deal with the agenda of the powers that be. All she has is her guile, her determination to do right by her family, and her weapon of choice.
Put like that, the latter is the only thing that separates Jennifer Lawrence’s two most recent characters. Katniss Everdeen favours a bow and arrow; Joy Mangano prefers the Miracle Mop. Yet watching The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 and Joy together, it’s clear that the actress can thrive in any arena.
Lawrence now has serious rivals as her generation’s greatest actress, not least 2016’s Oscar winners Brie Larson and Alicia Vikander. As a star, though, she’s way ahead. These films, conspicuously fashioned around that persona of steely resolve, help to explain why. Intriguingly, each film represents J-Law’s third collaboration with the directors she’s most associated with, Francis Lawrence and David O. Russell. That their respective approaches are so different highlights how mercurial the actress has become.
In his final Hunger Games outing, Francis Lawrence shoots tight, almost making a mockery of the lavish production design by preferring to capture his namesake’s suspicious, conflicted face as Katniss becomes a reluctant pawn in the battle between rebel leader Alma Coin ( Julianne Moore) and vicious President Snow (Donald Sutherland). In contrast, Russell unleashes a galloping hybrid of melodrama, screwball comedy and corporate thriller, as his pinball staging throws obstacles in Joy’s path as she battles to make her invention a success. If anything, Joy is more formidable than Katniss, facing down opponents with a hard stare that would make Paddington blush.
Tunnel vision
Both are proper, Norma Desmond-sized performances of the kind so often neglected in modern Hollywood. Lawrence holds her own against high-calibre performers: Moore, Sutherland and the late Philip Seymour
Hoffman in Mockingjay – Part 2; Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper in Joy. And she’s ambitious enough to warp expectations: here, it’s the blockbuster that delivers the dark drama and the Oscar-nommed prestige pic that crackles with comedy.
Somehow, THG:M–2 feels like an underdog, eclipsed on release by the supernovas of SPECTRE and The Force Awakens. That’s an odd sensation considering that The Hunger Games has been one of the decade’s rare hits to chime with critics and audiences alike, but it surely owes something to Lawrence’s ability to locate the fragility within her heroine. Especially when watched in sequence with its predecessors – and the entire saga is also available as a four-film set – Lawrence never lets Katniss become a superhero.
By blockbuster standards – especially compared to the thunderous battle royales in the Harry Potter and Hobbit finales – this is an unusual send-off, its dogged, behind-enemy-lines narrative lacking any fist-pumping triumphalism. Indeed, aside from a frightening set-piece in claustrophobic tunnels that pushes the boundaries of the 12-certificate, the action largely makes way for world-weary musings on politics and war. It’s a collection of brave ideas and noble sentiments that only occasionally coheres as gripping drama, but absolutely right for Katniss’ journey. It’s doubtful the producers would have kept faith in Suzanne Collins’ bittersweet source novel were it not for Lawrence’s nuanced depiction of a dystopian Scarlett O’Hara.
She who dares
The actress’ old-school appeal is even clearer in Joy, as Russell perfects the promise of previous collaborations Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Cheekily, the opening caption reckons to be “inspired by the true stories of daring women. One in particular.” That’s an acknowledgement that this most zig-zaggy of directors wasn’t to be hamstrung by the facts of Mangano’s life, but it’s also an admission that (despite great work by Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd and Isabella Rossellini), this is very much The Jennifer Lawrence Show.
Controversially, Russell dismissed a more conventional screenplay by Bridesmaids’ cocreator Annie Mumolo to refashion Joy’s life as a parable of American womanhood. A feminist Citizen Kane? That’s a lofty ambition and the result is understandably uneven, as Russell and his four (!) editors swap tones and genres. The film’s stylings as a bizarre soap opera-cumfairytale feel contrived, but with Lawrence at her most charismatic, visibly bristling at the shackles, it’s only a matter of time before the story lands. When a boat trip goes awry and Joy cuts her hands mopping blood off Rossellini’s prize teakwood deck, she gets a brainwave.
From here, the film fires ideas and follows plot threads at will. There are strands about the consumerist impulses behind the American dream, the perilous state of relying on family for advice (an old Russell favourite) and even hints of A Star Is Born in Joy’s relationship with Cooper’s mentor figure. Like the mop itself, these strands are woven only loosely together but – as in Mockingjay – Part 2 – it doesn’t matter when Lawrence is the one who is wielding it. No wonder the odds continue to be in her favour.
Big extras: Joy includes a 70-min Lawrence/ Russell on-stage Q&A, while the THG:M–2 Blu-ray offers a Making Of running a whopping 140 mins; though a fair chunk of that is heart-on
Simon Kinnear sleeve wrap-party speeches.
EXTRAS › Joy › Q&A › Featurette THG: M2 › Commentary (BD) › Making Of (BD) › Featurettes
‘Watching these two films together makes it clear that Jennifer Lawrence can thrive in any arena’