Silence is not the absence of sound. It's a physical place, a destination with value and meaning in a chaotic world, somewhere arrived at with difficulty and left with regret.

Death is supposed to be the great equalizer, but that's never true. Death is random, capricious, unconcerned, a flagrant player of favorites. It keeps its own counsel, so much the better to profoundly shock by its actions.

Joy is based, albeit loosely, on the life of Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur, inventor and QVC shopping network star with the mega-selling Miracle Mop. Jennifer Lawrence is excellent as Joy, but the film starts off on the wrong foot with woeful depictions of her background as the only sane person in her dysfunctional family.