Joy (2015) - Movie Review

 

David O. Russell might be one of the most emotionally intuitive filmmakers working today, if not ever. Every film he’s been attached to explores some inner working of the human psyche to (usually) great effect: Sex (Spanking The Monkey), personal identity (Flirting With Disaster), greed (Three Kings), comfort through the metaphysical (I Heart Huckabees), pride (The Fighter), depression (Silver Linings Playbook), deception (American Hustle) and… okay, I haven’t quite figured out where Accidental Love fits into this overall picture.

 

Nevertheless, the man is a phenomenally good writer and director, especially in recent years. After the largely confusing mess of Huckabees, which people seemed to love or hate for the same reason (that it made no sense), O. Russell went through a definite change in his tactics. His slapstick style of direction became more introspective, resulting in a trio of films that were not only good but were legitimately some of the best films of their respective years, if not the entire decade. So, given how much I clearly adore the man’s work, I look forward to today’s subject hoping that Accidental Love wasn’t some kind of ill omen. Even for filmmakers I like, I can’t help being cynical.

Accidental Love (2015) - Movie Review

Oh, how I have waited for this day… much like how I await the day I get castrated. Today is the day that I look at a film that has been disowned by its director. Not that this is anything new in Hollywood; google the name “Alan Smithee” and you’ll get an idea of how prevalent this is. However, what makes me so hesitant to look at this is for two big reasons: One of them being that disowning a project usually happens as a result of excessive interference/displeasure with said project, meaning that the end result more likely than not is going to suck. The other reason is that the disgruntled filmmaker in question today is David O. Russell, recent Oscar idol and a man who I wholeheartedly trust to deliver emotionally resonant, if sometimes incoherent, cinema. The man has a knack for delivering amazing work from rather unorthodox subject matter when left to his own devices. In other words, he’s pretty much one of the last people that should be brought under the fire of studio interference.