Spoiler alert for the ending of Finding Joy. Tyler Perry goes full cozy-mode with this one: a stranded fashion designer, an off-the-grid hero in the Rockies, and a romance that leans all the way into fate. It is simple, sincere, and very much designed to make you exhale. Here is how it plays out and why the last act lands the way it does.
The seven-day snowstorm romance
Joy, a former foster kid now grinding in New York fashion, ends up lost in a Colorado blizzard. Ridge finds her by literally diving into a freezing lake to pull her out. She wakes up in his woodsy cabin where he lives like modern life blocked his number. He is quiet, guarded, and clearly carrying something heavy.
They are snowed in together for a week. Judgments fade, they open up, it clicks, and they share one very lovely night. Then morning hits and Ridge turns into a wall: distant, no goodbye, just lets her walk out. She is crushed and does what you do when a mountain man ghosts you — she goes back to her life.
A month later: the city knock on the door
Plot twist for Mr. Not-On-Instagram: Ridge tracks Joy down in New York. He pleads his case, explains himself, and finally says the quiet part out loud — he fell in love with her and is ready to drop his hermit routine to be with her. They talk all night. Not long after, he takes it further and tells her he wants to marry her.
So what does Ridge's mom have to do with any of this?
This is the part the movie keeps tucked under the romance until it matters. Ridge opens up about his mother: she died two years earlier, two days before Christmas. He did not handle it well. While the rest of his family seemed to move on faster than he could, he kept retreating to that cabin every year, isolating himself instead of showing up for the holidays.
Joy fixes a quilt in the cabin that his mother had made — she matches the stitches perfectly, which rattles him in a good way. Then the kicker: his mom's name was Joy too. Ridge starts seeing their meeting as fate stacked on coincidences. Joy nudges him back toward his family and helps him find the closure he has been avoiding since his mom passed. The short version: if Ridge had not been grieving there in that cabin, he never would have been in the right place to save Joy in the first place.
Joy's two big yeses: career and Ridge
On the work front, Joy gets the kind of break you do not talk yourself out of unless fear is doing the talking — a shot to launch her own fashion line. She hesitates. Ridge will not let her sideline the dream. He tells her point blank that this is what she has wanted and he will not stand by while she gives it away. She admits she is scared of failing. He promises he is in it with her. She says yes.
On the love front, Joy has a pattern of picking men who are not actually picking her back. Ridge is different. He loves her for who she is, and he is willing to change his life — including trading the quiet cabin for New York — to be with her. She is drawn to his simple way of living and, more importantly, the way he treats her. They get married.
The ending, clean and clear
- Week in a cabin after a snowstorm; they sleep together; he shuts down and she leaves hurt.
- One month later, Ridge shows up in New York, confesses he is in love, and later says he wants to marry her.
- Ridge reveals his mother died two years ago right before Christmas; the cabin was his grief hideout.
- Joy repairs his mom's quilt; turns out his mom's name was Joy too — he sees it as fate.
- Joy helps him reconnect with family and find closure.
- Joy accepts an offer to start her own fashion line after Ridge backs her and promises to stay by her side.
- They choose each other, and they get married.
Finding Joy is not trying to reinvent the genre; it is here to be warm and reassuring. Love shows up where you do not expect it, people can change, and sometimes the guy who lives off the grid will swim through an ice bath to pull you into your future.
Finding Joy is streaming now on Prime Video.