I saw the film Joy last week. It's about the protagonist building a business based on a product she invents. She's goes through the roller coaster of ups-and-downs of building something while constantly surrounded by dysfunctional family members. According to the Wikipedia entry, it's loosely based on the true story of Joy Mangano.

Interesting Elements:
- We often hear stories about people's “meteoric rise to success” after getting their “big break” in business. This film presents the reality of success appearing to come overnight but only after years of struggle and failures.

- The producer protagonist rang true. Producers aren't usually superheros. They're just people working hard trying to make something useful for money. That's not glamorous. When you try to do something great, you make lots of mistakes, make some people angry and jealous, get on the authorities' bad side, and sometimes look like a fool.

- "Moochers” are not usually archetypal figures of evil like Ellsworth Toohey selling a destructive ideology. They're just people who fall into an unhealthful pattern of either wanting to freeload or wanting to undermine others to make themselves feel better. This behavior is related to Toohey's ideology, but here we see its run-of-the-mill results rather than the evil archetype of it.

- In this film, the “moochers” mostly operate with the consent of the producers, not by using direct force.

The film is at times slow-moving and tough sledding to watch, which is a lot like the reality of building something big. I like that it brings out many AS themes, usually without hitting the viewer over the head too hard with them.