Joker (2019) - Review
- Sam Bateson
- Jun 16, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 20, 2023
Director: Todd Phillips | Written by Todd Phillips; Scott Silver | 122m
(Spoilers ahead)
“Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.
- Warner Bros. -
I, like most, remember when the first trailer for Joker dropped. I also remember the world into which it was launched; ten years of the MCU had saturated the movie scene with increasingly bland superhero movies, despite what purists will tell you. Comic book movies had become boring again. Well, they had been since about Iron Man 3, but still, an onslaught of overly-formulaic, CGI heavy orgies of fan-service was dreary. Poor DC, the underdog in the superhero race, had little going for it, save for a couple of wins with Wonder Woman at best and Aquaman at worst. Things did not look good.
Then, over the horizon, appeared Joker; the antithesis to the popular superhero adventure, focussing on the classic comic villain the Joker, last played by Jared Leto in Suicide Squad. Not much to live up to, then.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz and Frances Conroy, the movie focusses on social outcast Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) and his attempts at a comedy career, inspired by his TV show host idol Murray Walker (De Niro). He shares his life with his mother Penny (Conroy), who is as dependent on him as he is on her. As the increasingly unstable Fleck loses his job, is assaulted on the subway by Gotham rich kids and is generally screwed over by a society that would rather see him dead than try to affect change, he experiences a descent into delirium that leads him to adopt the title of Joker (whether or not this is the same Joker from the comics is never made explicitly clear...). The trailers made no secret of the fact that DC is no longer trying to copy Marvel (thank god...), and that it is trying to carve out its own niche that's been there for years; where the MCU is friendly, appealing and bland, there is room for artistic cinema that subverts everything you come to expect from a comic book movie whilst updating it brilliantly for a more mature audience. Paired with a minimalistic, period score by Hildur Guðnadóttir, and it's a recipe for success that puts DC in good stead to produce more like it for years to come.
There's a lot to unpack with Joker. Taking real-life elements such as the 1984 Bernard Goetz incident, the film presents a downtrodden outcast who has been discarded by society. Unable to reconcile his sorry existence with his dreams of being a stand-up comedian, Arthur is the antihero most pre-release audiences decried as the stereotypical mentally-disadvantaged victim; but upon viewing the film, you realise that he is so much more complicated than that. Joaquin Phoenix does a superb job as the troubled titular character, who occupies the first realistically-realised Gotham in years; taking inspiration from the New York of Taxi Driver (amongst other influences...), the movie presents a disturbed, broken, gritty world that feels like something straight out of a documentary. The mental health aspect is surprisingly downplayed; I defy anybody who watches this film to not find a reflection of themselves somewhere in Arthur's character; be it his desire for greater things or his inability to find it, Arthur is the most realistic comic book character committed to screen in years. He falls just short of the greatness that was Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, yet these are two wildly different versions of the character, so perhaps it is unfair to compare them.
In a world that is increasingly occupied with the difficulties of politics, agendas and good vs evil, Joker does a fine job of balancing the appeal of a political promise vs the political reality. Arthur finds himself despondent, disappointed by the increasingly patronising promises of Gotham City mayor Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), who factors into the Joker lineage far more than you may at first realise. Frequently cast aside, ridiculed and bullied, Arthur struggles with his reality as a social outcast. Infrequent bursts of violence ensure most audiences will remain interested (but the movie is nowhere near as violent as you may expect), but the broader social commentary is commendable, and presenting it in such a unique way and in a genre that typically says very little is a genius move that more comic book movies could learn from.
Where Joker does rise to the level of true subversion, or, dare I say, art, is it's treatment of superheroes. Make no mistake, this movie leans into its Batman lore very heavily, though somewhat clumsily in places; featuring young Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olsen), Arthur Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge), and more frequently, Thomas Wayne, Joker does a commendable job of reminding us that our heroes can be just as much of an asshole as the villains; we get a painfully recreated Bruce's parents are shot in an alley scene that's been committed to film about a hundred times before. But here, we're given the sequence in a new context; here we are shown that Bruce is little more than a spoiled brat who has had everything handed on a silver plate whilst his parents live in their high castle commanding things from their position of entitlement with no clue about what's really going on in the city they pretend to care about. Every other interpretation of the Dark Knight, whilst often black and white, has always leaned into his lighter side as a helpful vigilante. At last, here is a reminder that there's the other side that's just begging to be explored.
Perhaps where Joker is let down is through the clumsiness of the storytelling; Arthur is not the most subtle character in the world (with such lines as "I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realise it's a fucking comedy", or his almost cringeworthy delivery of "They think we'll just sit there and take it, like good little boys! That we won't werewolf, and go wild!"), and exposition is delivered in ridiculous daydreams/imaginary sequences. There's even an entirely redundant love-plot that turns out to be an imagined-or-maybe-not-real-love-plot that the movie could have done without, and whose big twist was entirely too easy to see coming. But do you know what? For all of the film's failings, there's something to be said for the sheer ballsiness to unambiguously say something for a change. The above-quoted line (my life is a comedy) is entirely too on-the-nose, but dammit, it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Arthur is someone you should never align yourself with, but for god's sake, he's right about almost everything he says and does. Of course, you should never stab your friends in the neck or smash their heads against a wall until they burst like a melon, nor should you shoot three entitled rich pricks on a subway. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't feel a little catharsis to see it in a movie...
Joker is incredible in its ability to dumb down many aspects of the plot; Arthur is bullied by cartoonish 'bad guys', the mental health angle is about as obvious as a firework at a funeral and analogies are so infrequent that you wonder why they bothered disguising them at all. But that seems to be the point; the film is a reflection of a society that hasn't changed; Intelligent storytelling is esoteric, foreign and frightening. Appeal to the lowest common denominator with a story that needs to be told and you have the highest chance of being understood.
audiences will probably argue about the meaning of Joker for years to come, and that's a good thing; it has the ability to tell us a lot about a world we'd like to just shove aside ("People don't give a shit about us, Arthur." Arthur's social worker (Sharon Washington) tells him). Sure, it's unpleasant at times, but don't be afraid of it; this is exactly the kind of cinema we need.
Sam's Score: 7
Joker is available on home media and most digital video stores.
All images © Warner Brothers
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