Joker Review

Trying his hand at a non-comedic project, Todd Phillip's Joker centers around Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a struggling clown/stand up comic living in Gotham City with his mother (Francis Conroy). His dream is to be on television on a talk show with Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) but he finds it difficult with various setbacks that life throws his way. Fired from his job, dealing with mental issues and harassment from his fellow citizens, all the while garbage piles up and people riot in the streets against Thomas Wayne (Brent Cullen), a billionaire running for mayor, Arthur finds very little to cling to apart from his girlfriend Sophie (Zazie Beetz). It's only a matter of time until something snaps in him and he becomes the titular Joker. 

There are three types of movie-going experiences out there. The first kind is watching a movie that you can walk into knowing nothing about it. If you're able to stick your fingers into your ears, quickly glance over any press on it and just watch trailers or cast interviews, this sort of experience allows you to be fairly objective on how you perceive the film. You can embrace or reject it on your own terms. The second kind is watching a movie based on what you've found. This can be as deep as you'd like, sticking to feedback from friends or looking at reviews or commentaries regarding it. While more subjective, this provides you with a context that can allow you to focus more on certain details in which you can determine your own viewpoint and make your stance. Both of these are ones that are within your control, as you can choose how you want to color your movie-going experience.

Joker meanwhile falls into the unmentioned third category, the film caught in a zeitgeist where the media will bombard you with opinions, controversies, arguments and counter-arguments that you will know most everything about the movie before you step out the door to greet the day. Even being off the grid, you can't help but find yourself having to take a stance on it. Under this, you might find yourself having to do a combination of the two previous experiences as you simultaneously purge all those takes that have been thrown your way while being so hyper-aware of them that you already have a feeling of how you'll receive the film unless it truly goes out of its way to surprise you. There was already a lot that titled my perspective. The trailer providing a classier approach to a comic book villain (as well as providing allusion to The Killing Joke). The media obsession over a psychopath committing another Aurora in the theatres. Todd Phillips's baby boomer-like grumblings over comedy being impossible in this era. Add to it some sociopolitical critique and spoilers, and my mind was made up. However, I had to see it for myself just to confirm, which thankfully I was able to do once all the attention for it died down a bit. Given that it has become such a hot topic, I feel there is no point to be wholly coy about the film's contents.

It's hard to know where to start given all the attention the film has received. I was both drawn into it by what I had seen from it and what I had heard about it. Had it been one or the other, I could have focused on my perspective or played off of the perspective of others. Instead it's this juggling act where I'm throwing both perspectives in, one at a time. For instance, much of what I've read regarding Joker's cinematic inspirations focuses on its similarities to Taxi Driver. He's a loner, he's got problems, he has a grudge with the city. Seemed to me like child's play, most any film about some troubled man who's isolated from society made nowadays could be seen as inspired from that. To me, it seemed more like one ought to look at The King Of Comedy, another Scorsese production. It focuses on another off-kilter fellow, but he's more jovial, more deluded. He's desperate to make his mark on the world. It helps that Robert DeNiro is there to pay homage to it by playing as Murray Franklin paralleling the Jerry Langford-Rupert Pupkin dynamic. Joker proved itself to be a bit of both, wearing the grimy city aesthetics of Taxi Driver while thematically sounding like The King Of Comedy with the budding romance and Arthur's efforts and delusions to be on Murray Franklin's show.

Of course, Joker has something of its own as it balances its Scorsese influence with a cinematic elevation of DC intellectual property. One has to commend Joaquin's tireless efforts in adding depth to the Joker, who is one of those characters that seems simple on paper but harder on execution. Much of the beauty of the Joker is that his end goal is easy to understand but convincing others to follow him to that goal is not. Through seeing how Arthur Fleck makes the transition, Joaquin is able to show the pain and twisted logic that leads one to side with the Joker. Coupled with masterful cinematography that captures those perfect moments of his vision coming to fruition, his performance truly can stand its own when placed next to Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill and Jack Nicholson.

This however doesn't exactly convince me enough to consider it as a proper arthouse interpretation of a comic book character. Other critics who watched the movie without begging incels to kill the normies have pointed to Phillips's stumbles in his efforts to deliver a more serious production. Hesitantly, I have to concur, as there is a lack of subtlety throughout the movie that saps it of its potential. In this day in age, I don't necessarily feel like an inability to provide any nuance is a detriment as sometimes messages need to be spelled out in bold letters so that as many people get the hint. But if one is going through all the effort to make magnificently beautiful shots or create poignant montages with songs that were practically made to play over them, the narrative elements should play into that as well. It's not so much that Joker can't take a breath to revel in some of its artistic complexity, but rather that it seems to blurt out the obvious much in the same way that Arthur is unable to control his laughter.

Much of this stumbling to achieve greatness presides over the rest. Tonally, Phillips is able to maintain a solid ground with the dramatic parts, bar the instances where it's too blunt for its own good. When it comes to his forte of adding some comedy on the other hand, there is surprisingly a sense of restraint. There are moments where the dark humor lands perfectly and gives insight into the Joker's comedic sensibilities, with many of them involving him dancing. And then there are scenes that could have been punchier, such as the joke that he delivers on the Murray Franklin talk show. It would have been better if he had delivered the joke that he was practicing but adding the 'twist' that appears in the film.

Speaking of which, the narrative has a solid amount of twists that complement the drama and comedy throughout Joker. I particularly love the development of Arthur's relationship with his mother as it correlates to their relationship with the Wayne family. She could've used a little more screen time along with better dialogue to work with though. It is much better than Arthur and Sophie's relationship, which adds nothing, especially when its revealed that he made it all up. To me, it would have made more sense to have Arthur make up having further conversation with his social worker, perhaps showing him cope a little better, have him get along with her better and provide a little bit of insight into his thinking. That way it could hit harder just how much she doesn't really seem to help Arthur in his mind when she reveals that the funding has been cut.

This brings me to the last point, the political message. It's strange that in how much of Joker struggles with the rest, its purpose is the strongest aspect. It's already been said from those that wanted to counter the mainstream agenda that much of why they're decrying the film as a tool to turn antisocial loners into shooters is that it addresses the current alienation and speaks to the massive inequalities and cruel absurdities that exist in this world. Certainly one can see that from how Gotham City faces a garbage strike, Thomas Wayne shows how out of touch he is with the people (to the point that the Joker becomes an icon of the resistance) and Arthur's path down into becoming the Joker from the indifference and antipathy of society. But Joker also reminds the audience that his reasoning and purpose are not ones to adhere to. There is the obvious fact that he is violent and cruel, but there's also how apolitical he is, that much of the people that 'aide' him are black, suffering their own setbacks in the city but he's colorblind and selfish to it, only concerned with his own demented purpose to be somebody. The anarchy carries a justified anger but requires a better focus and to let Joker be in control of that is absurd given how he is no more in tune to the realities of people's struggles as Thomas Wayne is. It's more against incels and the radical sort that inflict senseless violence than it's given credit for.

I'm hoping Joker is the first stepping stone to seeing more unique takes on comic book characters in the same vein of Logan and The Dark Knight. It might not exactly be on the same level as either one, but it has done well to differentiate itself from the MCU factory line. If future projects can learn from its faults and expand further on what it can promise, I see a good future for this new direction DC movies might take. Perhaps even Marvel might start taking lessons from them. If I could make a few suggestions I think more Batman villains should get their own projects. I would like to see a tragic romance for Mr. Freeze or a heavy film noir revolving around Poison Ivy. As it stands though, I'm quite fine with Joker, with its urban cynicism cloaked by a few sensible chuckles of the bizarre tragicomedy that we all live in.