Review: Joker
When they first announced a Joker origin story I cast it away as a terrible idea, as evidenced by Darth Vader and Hannibal, once you try to explain the reason behind evil you end up neutering what made evil so special. Then Todd Phillips was picked for director and I thought ‘The Hangover guy?’ and saw no way this film could work. Then Joaquin Phoenix was cast as Joker, that got me interested, at the very least I thought he could do a great performance in what I was sure to be a so-so movie.
Then all the reviews came in calling the film amazing, brutal and Oscar worthy. As much hyperbole as ‘Oscar’ buzz is I was intrigued, I don’t mind being proven wrong and goddamn, was I wrong about this. Joker is something special for comic-book movies and hopefully can set the standard for a new breed of morality tales going forward.
The year is 1981 and Gotham City is a shithole, garbage collectors are on strike, crime is rampant with the rich stealing every dollar they can get away with and the poor killing each other for what little they have, funding is being cut from helping those in need of it and Batman is 30 years too young to do anything. Enter Arthur Fleck, one of life’s invisibles who just faces shit at every turn, his job as a street clown gets him beaten up by punks and his attempts at being a stand-up comic are sullied by a neurological condition which causes him to uncontrollably laugh when he’s nervous. With nothing but his elderly mother, Penny, Arthur lives a lonely, put-down-upon life where even those he considers friends find him creepy and unnerving.
After one of the worst weeks in his life where Arthur is beaten up, giving a gun to protect himself then fired for having the gun, a ride on the subway leads to three rich pricks attacking Arthur, culminating in him killing two of them in self-defence then executing the third. Because of his clown make-up eye-witnesses can’t identify Arthur but the news runs with the clown killer story and after mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne insinuates that the poor driven to crime are a bunch of clowns, an anti-rich movement kicks off using Arthur’s clown face as a symbol.
With a strange, new confidence surging through him, Arthur starts picking up the pieces of his life, he starts a relationship with his neighbour, single mother Sophie and his starts looking into why his mother is sending so many letters to Thomas Wayne, only to fall down a rabbit hole he can’t escape from.
This is 110% a character piece, showcasing how anyone can become a Joker-like figure if they’re pushed hard enough, and the film pushes HARD against Arthur, from the obvious stuff like the shitty people that surround him and the numbing power of is several medications to the little things like an off-handed comment from a friend or loved one that catches you off-guard. Resorting to violence is never a good answer but the film shows that to a lot of people, especially those who have asked for help and received nothing, violence becomes their only answer, it’s why they film does the clever job of using Joker’s image to set off riots and violence across Gotham, it’s not just Arthur that’s down-trodden, forgotten and alone, he’s just got the worst of it because of his mental illnesses and his delusional visions but there’s an entire city of working class, impoverished citizens that look to him as a symbol for chaos, for tearing down the established order.
Perhaps what the film does best is that through Arthur’s delusions we can see that he’s essentially an unreliable narrator, some scenes we can clearly see are his own fractured thoughts but there’s a level of ambiguity to just how much of the film is real and how much Arthur imagines. To paraphrase The Killing Joke; if Joker is to have a past, it’s preferably to have it be multiple choice. Whether Arthur is THE Joker or just the ignition point for who becomes the Joker later on is left up in the air which is a clever way to go about being sympathetic to a man who is living, breathing anarchy.
Acting wise the film is dominated by Phoenix but the supporting cast does a solid job keeping up with him, I’m torn on Zazie Beetz as Sophie, she’s shown to be this caring figure with a cynical sense of humour but little else. There is a very good reason for this that I won’t spoil and I do like how her relationship with Arthur helps define part of his downfall but more to his benefit than to hers.
Robert De Niro seems to be having fun playing Murray Franklin, a talk-show host who Arthur enjoys watching until Murray makes fun of him after a clip of his failed stand-up hits the show. There have been obvious comparisons made between Murray and Arthur’s relationship and De Niro’s role in King Of Comedy, both showcasing a mentally unstable protagonist and the talk-show host they try to identify with and De Niro plays into that, making Murray charismatic and funny but with an underlying sense of bullying about him with how he treats Arthur. It’s a good role for De Niro that allows him to utilise both his comedy and dramatic muscles.
Brett Cullen has relatively small role as Thomas Wayne but the little we see of him we get a good picture of who he is, unlike previous versions this Thomas is uncaring, unsympathetic and unapologetic. He calls poor criminals a bunch of clowns, he bullshits about feeling sorry for the loss of the three rich assholes that attacked Arthur and there’s more that I won’t get into but his role in pushing Arthur further down the realm of madness is a small but pivotal one.
Frances Conroy plays Arthur’s mother Penny, a sweet but frail old woman struggling in the impoverished lifestyle she’s living in, constantly sending letters to Thomas Wayne, her old employer, asking for help. On the surface you can see that Arthur dotes on her and there is a familiar bond between them, but Penny lets slip a few odd phrases that feel a little harsh leading to a reveal that puts her as one of the key elements of Arthur’s downfall without even knowing what she was doing. It’s a nice twist on the parental role of developing serial killers, Penny’s still with Arthur and she’s not abusive but there’s something not right about her.
But of course, this film belongs to Joaquin Phoenix and for good reason, the man is nigh on perfect as Arthur, expertly balancing the line between sympathetic and straight-up pathetic, showing us why the world picks on him but also just how badly it affects him. It’s not defined what exact mental illness Arthur has but to the film’s benefit that avoids pigeon-holing him with one condition, instead using the frame-work of mental illness to get their point across, that Arthur needed help, he needed someone to look at him, see the verbal, physical and emotional abuse he was facing on a daily basis and help him. Instead he fell through the cracks of society and was forced to climb his way back out on the bodies of the rich and despicable, Arthur could very easily be anyone, be it in 1981 or 2021, the ignorance of those in need hasn’t changed and – to quote Killing Joke again – all it takes is one bad day to send someone over the edge.
What Phoenix does so well is that he manages to break down Arthur little by little before fully committing to the Joker image, for most of the first act we see him quiet, meek, cursed with uncontrollable laughter that you can legitimately hear Phoenix trying to hold back and choking himself in his attempts. But he’s an entertainer at heart, he wants to bring joy to people and nobody cares, everyone is too angry, too bitter, too pissed off to want anything from a clown, so when Arthur does snap and kills the three men on the subway, he doesn’t automatically turn into a homicidal killing machine, there’s still part of him that tries to be a regular human, going on dates with Sophie, taking notes at a comedy club for his own stand-up (and missing the right clues on when to laugh). Phoenix makes the transformation slow, methodical, occasionally letting Joker shine through his Arthur mask, with every ounce of bullying, every twisted revelation, every fucked-up moment in his life that batters him down more and more, Arthur slips further and further away and once Joker is finally unveiled, dancing down the steps to the tune of Gary Glitter, you are so enraptured by what Arthur’s been through and what he’s become that you’re fully on his side, despite his murderous nature.
Phoenix just embodies all of it, both physically with his gaunt figure and his choking laughter and psychologically with Arthur’s delusional, fragile mind twisting him just as much as the society around him. It’s an incredible performance of one man’s fall into madness and deserves to be recognised as one of the best comic book performances put to screen.
The real surprise here though is Todd Phillips, primarily known for his R-Rated comedy films (Road Trip, War Dogs, Hangover trilogy) here he channels his inner Scorsese to deliver a much darker film that anything he’s done before. And that includes Hangover 2’s transsexual surprise. Right from the get-go, Gotham is shown to be seedy, filthy and riddled with crime, it is an absolute hell-hole to live in and whether you look there’s some form of trash lining the streets. Phillips does not hold back making the film feel grimy and grungy, whether by today’s standards or 1980s it’s a terrible place to be. It’s an absolute powder keg which is why it’s so easy for Arthur to (unintentionally) light the match and set it off, the murder of three rich assholes is a cathartic experience for the downtrodden and see the ‘Clown Killer’ as a hero.
Evoking films like Taxi Driver and the aforementioned King Of Comedy, Phillips captures that timeless message of what happens when someone is ignored for too long but in today’s climate of mass shooters and misdiagnosed mental illness, using the Joker as a figurehead for the delusional and ignored allows the film to take a character who previously existed only to cause death and mayhem and delve into why he, or anybody, would resort to such measures. The media is crying out that sympathising with a maniac like Joker is dangerous but it’s not to sympathise with Joker, it’s to understand why Arthur would become Joker. It’s a far sharper picture than I expected and should be remembered for how unflinching it is in regards to the damage mental illness can do if left unchecked and exacerbated by abuse and neglect.
Even in just a natural director stance Phillip pulls off some great moments here, there aren’t a lot of violent moments but the ones there are, are sudden and very, VERY bloody, often catching you off-guard and making more of an impact. Tension comes slowly with the entire final act at Murray’s talk-show you know what’s about to happen but you’re waiting to see exactly WHEN it will happen, between Arthur finally having a soapbox to let loose and Murray trying to get through to a problem he doesn’t understand, it’s the final spark before the inevitable explosions. There’s even some elements of dark humour to add a little bit of levity, the darkest one being when Arthur’s dwarf co-worker comes round to visit that I won’t spoil here, a film called Joker you’d expect to have some funny scenes but for how uncomfortably brutal the rest of the film is, it does surprise you at times when you find yourself laughing.
Joker is a film that can open a lot of doors for comic-book movies, as much as I love the MCU, being able to tell a singular story without worrying about context or timelines or future impact as allowed them so much more freedom to deliver a timely tale of mental illness, ignorance and violence. Phillips resets himself as a director with his handling of the heavy themes but it’s Phoenix’s layered role as Arthur breaking down and being rebuilt into Joker that will keep this film in everyone’s minds. It’s an ugly, ugly film but through the rewriting of the Joker mythos they’ve pulled out something extraordinary.
9/10