Joker
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Written by: Todd Phillips and Scott Silver
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais, Marc Maron, Sondra James, Douglas Hodge, Dante Pererira-Olson, Sharon Washington, Brian Tyree Henry, Gary Gulman, Chris Redd
Crime/Drama/Thriller - 121 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Oct 2019
Written by: Todd Phillips and Scott Silver
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais, Marc Maron, Sondra James, Douglas Hodge, Dante Pererira-Olson, Sharon Washington, Brian Tyree Henry, Gary Gulman, Chris Redd
Crime/Drama/Thriller - 121 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Oct 2019
Joker is not a Batman movie. It’s the same character you know from previous films and a young Bruce Wayne even pops up, but director Todd Phillips did not make a superhero/villain story. There are certainly no heroes. Origin story is also too flippant a category for what is a more nuanced portrait of a disastrous combination of the failure of the nurture side of an individual’s upbringing – both parental and societal. It’s a case study, filtered through a 1970’s cinematic lens, of how a person, set up for failure from birth, may lurch into an area they cannot return from. According to Phillips, Gotham City created its own monster. Watching Joaquin Phoenix become that anarchic swirl of chaos, shoved into it by forces beyond his control, may shock you at how much you find yourself empathizing with a bad guy. Joker will challenge your black and white view of the world with a, “But it’s not his fault” excuse you would normally toss aside in the real world.
Arthur Fleck (Phoenix, Inherent Vice) was dealt a losing hand and the city he lives in only makes it worse. “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” he moans to his social worker. Gotham City is a shithole and Phillips is more than adept at making it look like mid-‘70s New York City. There is a garbage strike, the local news warns of super rats, and roving street thugs seem to compete with Wall Street dudebros for who can make everything that much worse. Too many external factors at once are pushing Arthur to push back. Arthur’s mother (Frances Conroy) pens a futile nightly letter to the man she worked for pleading for help, the man always on the news running for mayor, Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen, The Dark Knight Rises). Arthur’s social worker says there will be no more visits due to budget cuts, his medication will run out, and he loses his job as a clown.
Arthur Fleck (Phoenix, Inherent Vice) was dealt a losing hand and the city he lives in only makes it worse. “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” he moans to his social worker. Gotham City is a shithole and Phillips is more than adept at making it look like mid-‘70s New York City. There is a garbage strike, the local news warns of super rats, and roving street thugs seem to compete with Wall Street dudebros for who can make everything that much worse. Too many external factors at once are pushing Arthur to push back. Arthur’s mother (Frances Conroy) pens a futile nightly letter to the man she worked for pleading for help, the man always on the news running for mayor, Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen, The Dark Knight Rises). Arthur’s social worker says there will be no more visits due to budget cuts, his medication will run out, and he loses his job as a clown.
The audience pulls for Arthur. We know we’re rooting for a man right before he becomes a madman, but how can you look past a suffering soul who says, “I just don’t wanna feel so bad anymore.” In a run-of-the-mill comic book film, this angst would not stick as much as it does. But Phillips injects full on pathos. After Arthur turns a corner and commits his first notorious act, we’re not looking at guilt or shame, we see Arthur dance by himself in a public restroom to a pounding cello soundtrack looking born again. He is a new man. He is empowered. He exists. It is a sublime scene.
Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver blur the lines between the film’s older setting and the 2019 timeframe its audience comes from. There is an undercurrent of haves vs. have-nots running through Gotham and Joker’s emergence shoves it into the open. Thomas Wayne says the under classes resent “those of us who made something of our lives.” Arthur sneaks into a black tie gala in one of those old movie palaces where Wayne shows Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times while a mob of protestors creates a ruckus out front. Modern Times is a film for and about the working man. It’s about the exploitation of workers in a world increasingly run by machines. Arthur doesn’t care that Wayne co-opts a film not meant for him and the other yacht owners, he has no political agenda. Arthur has personal business with Thomas Wayne.
Arthur is not anti-rich, nor does he peddle any other discernible ideology, but he is upset at the era’s lack of civility. He does not murder at random, but he is the monster of his time. Wall street sleaze balls, predatory co-workers, and exploitative show business tycoons, beware. Phillips injects Arthur’s descent with a lot of Sinatra, specifically “That’s Life,” and also sets a later riot scene to Cream’s “White Room” in a section which would easily fit in Mean Streets or any other early Scorsese. Fingers crossed this Joker does not spur some new Batman franchise; there is no room for a Val Kilmer nipple suit or pun-muttering Schwarzenegger here. Arthur Fleck is man who needs help, a man Gotham City has no use for, and a man Phoenix plays for all he is worth.
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