The Joy Factor

What do a pack of stop-motion dogs on a Japanese landfill site, a bunch of bored quasi-alcoholic Danish school teachers, and a quadriplegic French millionaire with an untrained immigrant carer, have in common?

The link between Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, and Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s The Intouchables, isn’t immediately obvious. They don’t share a subject matter, let alone a genre. But they are all deeply, insatiably, unquestionably Full. Of. Joy.

Joyful films shouldn't be confused with comedies, and they aren’t always lighthearted. But, to adopt the phrasing of Marie Kondo (the person who I credit with catapulting Joy into the current cultural psyche) a joyful film is one with that Spark. It’s a feeling, it’s full-bellied, warm and, at a globally fraught time full of unknowns and tragedies, joy is needed now more than ever. Best of all, you can’t go wrong with a joyful film — they are better than feel good.

So if you are looking for a movie to take the sting out of a rough week or can’t settle the debate on what to watch with your housemate, pick Joy.

Wes Anderson’s Back Catalogue of Joy

Wes Anderson is, in my opinion, the master of joy. His cinematic signature of symmetry, quirks, and kook, can only be described as uniquely Wes Anderson-ish. Yet, their charm and joyful afterglow are the universal feelings that unite everyone from movie connoisseurs to infrequent cinema-goers, from toddlers to grandparents, in their love for him.

Candy coloured fin-de-siecle glamour your thing? The Grand Budapest Hotel is for you. Drawn to the trials and tribulations of first love? Check out Moonrise Kingdom. Looking for a good old dysfunctional family drama? The Royal Tennenbaums can’t be beaten.

Because beyond Anderson’s proclivity for symmetry, a unified colour palette, deadpan delivery, and re-occurring actors, there is actually very little shared subject matter or themes across his films. So, what do Fantastic Mr Fox, The Darjeeling Limited, and Bottle Rocket really have in common? They all vary widely in their plots, character dynamics, and settings, and yet they all leave you with a similar feeling, born from the perfect combination of humour, endearingly heartwarming moments, and some truly unexpected twist and turns. Surely, the unifying factor of a family of foxes fighting to save their community from bloodthirsty farmers, the Indian road train trip of grieving brothers, and the very failed heist of some very amateur criminals, is joy.

Thomas Vinterberg’s Unexpected Forray into Joy

Thomas Vinterberg, on the other hand, is not known for his lightheartedness or family-friendly fun. In fact, beyond their shared status of contemporary auteurs, it is hard to think of any other similarity between Anderson and Vinterberg. But Vinterberg's latest film, Another Round, has the joy factor in abundance.

Vinterberg is one of the original architects of the cult Dogme 95 movement. So not only are his filmed marked by the aesthetic restraints of the Dogme (no bought in props, no special lighting, handheld cameras only) but they, like its other founders, such as Lars von Trier and Harmony Korine, lean in to the disturbing and taboo. Vinterberg’s particular brand is one of an acute feeling of anxiety and discomfort in the face of the unflattering mirror he holds up to society and his audience. Even his Hollywood offering, Far From the Madding Crowd, is full of his characteristic betrayal and loss. Therefore, the overall good vibes that exude from Another Round took me (and the critics) by surprise.

The premise of Another Round is four middle-aged friends who decide to embark on a psychosocial experiment to test the theory that humans are better versions of themselves — happier, more creative, less socially inhibited — when they have a blood-alcohol level of 0.05, the equivalent of a couple of glasses in wine. Not only are they fuelled to undertake the challenge of being constantly drunk, in an effort to lift Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) from his depression, but they are all school teachers in a respected high school… sounds like a recipe for disaster?

Well, yes and no. Another Round is a film that could descend into chaos and tragedy at any moment, and at times it does. But, as I said before, joyful films do not need to be lighthearted. As the plot unfolds we learn more of the challenges, ennui, loneliness, work and home-related difficulties, that these men face, and the reality of having to make peace with a life full of unexpected disappointments.

However, it is also full of wild raucousness that stays on the right side of a good time and the touching intimacy of grown men trying to support and care for each other. You cannot help but be charmed by the messiness of their journey, and you are smiling as much as you are concerned. Somewhat bizarrely, this narrative of the middle-aged male come back in unexpected ways reminds of The Full Monty, should you be after something similarly joyous.

This is not a moralistic tale about alcohol misuse, and yet it is not presenting it as a solution either. Most of the men do find themselves and come out the other side more fulfilled, realised people. But there are also scenes of Vinterberg’s characteristic drawn-out anxiety, the devastation of suicide, and a critique of the pressures education systems put on young people. This film showcases the texture of life, and the reality, pressures, and, of course, joys, of being young and old.

Joy in the face of, and indeed, in spite of challenge is what Another Round represents. This could not be truer for anyone than Vinterbeg himself, and his gut-wrenching devastation the film was born out of. The original film did have a darker, more classically Vinterbergian premise, and it was intended to star his 19-year-old daughter, Ida. Four days into filming Ida was killed in a car crash.

And yet, after a break, Vinterberg, with the careful and close support of his co-workers, resumed making the film. A film that turned out lighter and more hopeful, than originally intended. The film is not about the release, destruction, or even joy, through drinking, but about the necessity of comradeship and uninhibited human connection. It is about the realities of life; the dark and light enmeshed with one of another, the fleeting moments of love or laughter that get us through the very worse thing we have known. A celebration of life, whilst acknowledging that life can be a truly and utterly heartbreaking affair.

'The Intouchables' and Joy in Unexpected Places

The Intouchables was somewhat of a phenomenon when it was released in 2011. I’m not sure if anybody was really certain it would break even on its budget, let alone become a major box office hit in not just its native France, but Japan, the US, Israel and a majority of Europe too.

The Intouchables is not only based on a true story, but takes a narrative that is filled with the potential for trauma and grief and spins it into a tale of unexpected friendship and the reigniting of joie de vivre. Phillipe, a widowed millionaire who is paralysed from the head down after a paragliding accident, is looking for a carer. Driss, a Senegalese immigrant with a criminal record, needs to apply for jobs in order to keep receiving his welfare benefits. After Driss steals a Fabergé egg belonging to Phillipe’s late wife during his interview, Philippe determines that Driss is the ideal candidate for the job… and he is. Because Driss has no experience at caregiving he must figure out a way that ends up being perfect for Phillipe. He treats Phillipe as human, not pussyfooting around the reality of his situation, whilst not pitying him either. Phillipe gives Driss purpose, a skill, a home, and opens up a new cultural world for him. Driss reconnects Phillipe to fun, opportunity, possibility and responds with his own cultural world.

It is a parallel tale of two people pushed to societies margins staking their claims to be treated with humanity, and discovering their passions via each other along the way. The film is a series of their antics, it is not precious around potentially contentious issues, but it is always generous and warm-hearted. It has car chases, an epic takedown of Opera, and romance. It’s the sort of film you watch and then re-watch again straight after.

💃 Dance, Dance, Wherever You May Be 🕺

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the most iconic scenes from The Intouchables is undoubtedly when Driss dances to ‘Boogie Wonderland’. Head to toe in black tie for Phillipe’s upper crust birthday party, he eschews the orchestra brought in for the occasion, plugs in his iPod, pulls out some pretty epic moves, and raises the rest of the socially restrained upper echelons on the Parisian bourgeoise to their, unrhythmic, feet.

Another Round cements its status as a joyful film when Martin finally dances, freely, abundantly, gracefully, for the closing scene (Mads Mikkelsen is a trained dancer, so it is truly epic). And who can forget the dancing on the beach in Moonrise Kingdom, the final slow motion dance of Rushmore, and the choreography of the fox family and Kylie the opposum dancing amongst the grocery store aisles in Fantastic Mr Fox.

The shared inclusion of dance, not the elastic-gymnastic professional kind, but the uninhibited, complete abandonment of your average joe dancer is a hallmark of the joyful film. Think Little Miss Sunshine, Billy Elliot, and the swaying priest and waltzing male peasants of Cinema Paradiso.

There are few things more joyful to watch, let alone do, than dancing for the sake of dancing, with awkward bodies and missed beats, in the fact of the general uprightness society demands of us.

So, instead of a tear-jerker, what about a joy-sparker?

Joyful films are about the feelings they stir in you and the afterglow they leave you with. It is fair to say that we all need, and deserve, more joy. Unlike a sustained state of happiness, joy is a fleeting but engulfing feeling. A feeling that can take up residence, for a moment or a day, in the midst of sadness, stress, and whatever life is throwing at our way. We often turn to cinema for escape, a story to suspend our disbelief and remove us from the pressure of our environs, and really, most films will serve this purpose. But nothing works quite like a balm to soothe and elicit positivity (regardless of how passing it is) than joy. Hence, I’m putting forward my recommendations, and a call for, more joyful films.

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(And as a credit to the joy factor of these films, I both re-watched many of them and wrote this piece in the days after having all my wisdom teeth removed. And enjoyed myself whilst doing so. If that isn't a testment to their joy factor I don't know what is.)