Finding Joy (2013) Poster

(2013)

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4/10
This whole family needs an obituary.
mark.waltz7 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
An unlikeable selfish writer (Josh Cooke) goes home to see his widowed father (Barry Bostwick) and finds the house overrun by needy family members and dad's latest main squeeze (Lainie Kazan), a sexually aggressive older woman who analyzes everyone's frigidity level, and a supposedly dying neighbor who won't leave him alone and likes to publicly humiliate him. She's also very demanding in how he writes her obituary. He's not having great luck in his career so he needs a time out from his regular life, but this change could drive anyone to either attempted suicide, a breakdown or the desire to move somewhere and create a population of one.

This starts off interestingly enough, but the female characters outside of Kazan are truly grating (and to say that about Kazan says a lot about the other women), and the house where he grew up has been turned into macadamia manor. His brother is being henpecked by his wife and daughter, and he is forced to sleep in a bathtub where his bed once was and listen to his father and cousin have sex. Very loud non-stop sex. Okay so they went a bit overboard with character development, and for the most part, these are not people I want to spend 90 minutes with. Quirkiness today is code for insane obnoxious personality disorder, and that makes this a very difficult film to get through. It may be a good acting exercise, but outside of that, it's torture.
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7/10
Cute fairy tale with likable characters
MongoLloyd31 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Not a bad film that capitalizes on the most overused plot device of the entire rom com genre.

Pretty girls don't approach awkward losers. It just doesn't happen, ever. If you can suspend disbelief over that fantasy, the film is entertaining and features very fine performances, hilarity, a little farce, and some of the poignancy that marks a good rom com.

Who doesn't get a kick out of family dysfunction and loser gets the girl stories?

Watch it with someone ;-p

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7/10
More Films Like These, Please - Finding Joy
arthur_tafero3 December 2018
There are no special effects, zombies, high tech, or violence in this film, so the chances that it would resonate with American audiences was very low. I generally hate films about writers who are "blocked"; they are generally people who are blockheads, not blocked. This story is about one of those blockheads who redeems himself by rejoining the human race via his family and next door neighbor, Joy. It is a simple story, but a very amusing one, as each member of the family is revealed to us by their own peculiar preferences. Joy is also peculiar; and we learn that just about everyone in the world is peculiar in their own way. A very insightful film. Be beware of the cat.
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8/10
really worth watching
oracleau1 July 2013
A quaint little tale about a writer and a dysfunctional family. I really enjoyed this, it was funny, witty and had a good little message about life hidden between the absurdity of the characters. If you liked 'little miss sunshine' and/or 'meet the fockers' or that sort of movie you would prob enjoy this too.

I was not sure what to expect from this as there was no review written for it yet, nor did I know much about the actors as I do not tend to watch a lot of TV series. Overall, however, I thought it was quite well acted. I noted that most of the directors previous works were all shorts so if this is his first attempt at a full length feature it is very impressive and I am sure we will be seeing more brilliance from him in the future.

The story is well written too and the storyline is clever without trying to be overly clever, nor is the comedy element overly bearing. It is the type of movie that always leaves you wanting a little bit more and hopefully in time perhaps they could build on this little gem. I was a little bit down and bored this evening and this was just what I needed.
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7/10
Odd
stormy18327 July 2020
Warning: Spoilers
It shows how messed up families r , and how to get along , they love in different ways.
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