As a general rule, it’s usually not that much of a surprise when a major studio wide release movie gets slapped with a PG-13 rating. Over the last decade or so, it’s become such an all-purpose rating that it’s almost noteworthy when a movie gets awarded anything else. But yeah, it is a little surprising to see that David O. Russell’s Joy has received a PG-13 for “brief strong language.” I don’t think I am alone in thinking that the Jennifer Lawrence biopic, one of the few big Oscar movies yet to be screened, was being positioned as the “adult movie of choice” over the Christmas season.
The 20th Century Fox release, starring Ms. Lawrence as the woman who invented the miracle mop, and co-stars Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, and Virginia Madsen, is due for wide release on Christmas Day along with the likes of Will Smith’s Concussion, the Warner Bros. /Time Warner Inc. Point Break remake, and the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy’s Home from Paramount/Viacom Inc. And for what it’s worth, if Daddy’s Home gets a PG-13 (which is not a guarantee) and Walt Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens gets a PG-13 (still yet to be determined), then we’ll have a crowded Christmas season with one PG-rated animated sequel (Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip), one R-rated comedy farce (the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Sisters from Universal/Comcast Corp.), and a whole bunch of PG-13 options.
The one outlier may be Paramount’s last minute Oscar contender The Big Short, which is a star-studded (Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, etc.) comedy/drama from Adam McKay financial gurus taking advantage of the housing crash (screenings start tonight and I'm seeing it tomorrow). But what’s interesting is that this is literarily the first time in 21 years that Mr. Russell has put out a movie that wasn’t R-rated (or in the case of the mother/son romantic comedy Spanking the Monkey, unrated). If anything, the filmmaker has positioned himself as a successful director of somewhat arty but wholly mainstream adult-skewing, star-driven commercial dramedies in an era when everyone whines that adults don’t go to the movies and/or adult dramas can’t compete with the tent poles.
And unlike the somewhat expensive Three Kings ($107m worldwide on a $75m budget back in 1999), his last three pictures have been moderately budgeted smash hits. The Fighter earned $129m worldwide on a $25m budget in 2010 for Paramount/Viacom Inc. while winning Best Supporting Oscars for Melissa Leo and Christian Bale. In 2012, The Silver Linings Playbook earned $236m worldwide on a $21m budget for the Weinstein Company while winning Jennifer Lawrence a Best Actress Oscar and snagging nominations for Bradley Cooper, Jacki Weaver, and Robert De Niro. And of course in 2013, American Hustle earned ten Oscar nominations, including nods for four out of its five main cast members, and earned $250m worldwide for Sony on a $40m budget.
All three of these films were unabashedly adult entertainments and all of them earned R-ratings even though they were not necessarily wallowing in sex and violence. Now that Joy ended up with a PG-13, for a designation that implies that it just barely deserved that lower rating, has nothing to do with its quality, its Oscar chances, or its ability to rope in adult moviegoers. Concussion doesn’t need an R-rating to play to adult football fans (and the younger fans who might do well to heed its message), and the Point Break remake getting a PG-13 was a sad inevitability even if the remake ironically looks even more violent than Kathryn Bigelow’s R-rated original. But I won’t pretend to not be a little disappointed that Joy is going out with the same “one size fits all” designation that has put much of cinema into the same box.
David O. Russell has arguably thrived specifically because his films have stood out by virtue of their adult appropriateness. Whether you like each individual film or not, his unapologetically R-rated mainstream entertainments have stood out even in the Oscar season. The notion of a film like American Hustle making $250 million worldwide is a net positive for the industry, and thus Russell’s career has been something of a last resort putting him alongside Tarantino or Scorsese (at least since he teamed up with Leonardo DiCaprio) in terms of being able to turn outright adult-skewing dramas and comedies into genuine blockbusters. And yes, it is ironic that the horrifying and violent Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 will get the same rating as Joy which apparently contains a few moments of harsh profanity.
Obviously it won’t mean a darn thing in the end if Joy is good and if it gets the expected awards-season attention. I get that PG-13 means more access to younger moviegoers, including younger females who don't get very many movies like this, as well as older moviegoers who are scared off by R-ratings. But I would be lying if I told you that the prospect of a PG-13 Joy becoming a smash hit this season is a bit less exciting than the prospect of an R-rated Joy becoming a smash hit this season. Oh well.
