Jennifer Lawrence’s tour de force performance in “Joy” is the number one reason to see this film. When you leave The Harbor Theatre, where it opens tonight at 7 p.m., you’ll understand why this young actress won a Golden Globe last weekend for her portrayal of Joy Mangano.

The film character is loosely based on Mongano’s real life as the woman who invents the Miracle Mop, made of plastic with the continuous loop of 300 feet of cotton for the mop head – that is machine washable, mind you - and wrings itself.

In “Joy,” Joy lives with her two kids, her loving, prophetic maternal grandmother, Mimi (Diane Ladd), her neurotic mother, Terry (Virginia Madsen) who lives in the fictional world of her favorite soap opera, dislikes men and stays in bed all day; and in the basement is her ex-husband of two years, Tony Miranne (Ėdgar Ramierz), and her father, Rudy (Robert De Niro). Her parents fight up a storm if they're in the same room and her half sister Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm) says unkind things to the two kids, particularly the daughter (Joy and Tony's eldest), about Joy.

Joy is buried in responsibility, family and debt. She works for an airline selling tickets and does accounting work for her father's business, Rudy's Truck and Auto Body. The property owner next to Rudy's business is always outside with his friends enjoying target practice with a variety of gun types. “Do you think it's hurting business,” Rudy asks Joy one day after she tells him biz is down.

Rudy ends up dating a woman he meets through a 900 dating service, Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), who turns out to be a wealthy Italian widow. Trudy invites Rudy's whole family on her deceased husband's 55-foot sailboat – in winter. As everyone is gathered on the boat drinking wine and sailing, a wave comes up and several glasses of red wine end up broken on the teak flooring. Joy ends up cleaning it up and cuts her hands on shards of glass. Her bleeding hands lead her to invent the Miracle Mop.

Joy shows drawings to her father and Trudy (who she asks to be her backer), but they just can't visualize what Joy's selling. 'Course they eventually do, Trudy does agree to help her — but only after Joy answers four questions that Morris, her dead husband, always asked potential business partners — but it is the last question that carried the most weight. If Joy was in a room with an adversary in business and there was a gun on the table, and only one of them could prevail, would she pick up the gun?

The path to fortune, like love, does not run smoothly for Joy. She encounters betrayal by business partners and family members, but rather than crumble, even when she faces bankruptcy, she finds strength — sometimes by visiting the “sharp shooters” next to her father's business and sending off a couple rounds — but, for the most part, Joy finds the strength to continue because she has the will and the resolve to survive and succeed.

It's Joy's ex, Tony, who knows a guy who knows a guy — but in this case, the “guy” is Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), the QVC executive who started the channel as a cable station in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This is the big break that will do what doing live demos in the Kmart parking lot could not — reach a huge audience ready to buy, all you have to do is sell the audience on your product.

Walker “gives” the Miracle Mop to one of the station's biggest sales people, another guy. But this guy doesn't do the product justice - he can't even use it properly.

 Joy convinces Walker to let her sell the product on air. It will be the first time the creator of a product has done this. Walker usually hires actors or celebrities. And the rest is TV shopping history - and the first of 100 products Mangano goes on to patent.

As an actress, Lawrence, at just 26, has the ability to make that “inner connection” with her character, which is crucial in conveying the human condition as it applies to that character. She is magnificent … and could quite possibly have earned her second Academy Award with this performance.

De Niro and Rossellini are, as always, brilliant, and Madsen's portrayal of the neurotic homebody who borders on agoraphobic, is a kick.

“Joy” opens Thursday, Jan. 14 and plays through  Saturday, Jan. 16, and Wednesday,  Jan. 20 and Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m.; Sunday, Jan. 17 at 2 p.m.

The Harbor Theatre is located at 185 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor. 207-633-0438.