Movie Review: Joker

 Joker [2019]

I've never reviewed this movie, huh? I've been slacking a lot on DC movies, and I am trying to catch up. Joker has always been an interesting beast for me to talk about, though, because of how utterly different it is. Joker came out at a time when the future of the DC movies have been in question. Unlike the relatively seamlessness of Marvel's projects or even DC's television shows; DC movies have been few and far between, and the promise of a large unified universe really kind of fell apart when their movies were so few and of so varying quality and tone. 

And then in comes Joker, which I think from a comic-book fan standpoint was an interesting exercise. Not tied to any prior Batman franchise, and in fact barely tied into Batman himself, Joker is just a standalone movie that details a possible origin story for everyone's favourite Clown Prince of Crime, played by the absolutely excellent Joaquin Phoenix. 

After the absolutely terrible and laughable joke of an adaptation that is Jared Leto's cheap punk in Suicide Squad, it's really interesting that Joker goes for a different sort of dark and edgy direction but still feels very much in line with the character from the comics.

There's a lot of debate to be held around this movie, and I really don't have too much to say without recapping the entire movie's plot. But as someone who's actually dealt a lot with people that have mental health issues, there's a lot of great way of taking the more modern views on mental illnesses like depression and combining it into Joker's iconic "it only takes one bad day for you to be like me" ethos frm the comics. 

We follow a clown, Arthur Fleck, as he goes through his hell of life. He's a low-earning clown that cries when he's off-work, and he's branded by everyone around him as a mentally-ill loner. His mother is sick, he's trying his best to forge a relationship with his neighbour Sophie and he's trying his best to care for her, but even among his clown friends he's treated as 'that freak'. The state and his medical officers and therapists barely care or are unable to care for him. Meanwhile, the movie does an absolutely stellar job at portraying the suffocating lower-class life of... well, not just Gotham City, is it? Of most large cities in the world. It's hard for anyone to live and eke out a living, but Arthur Fleck has a condition that causes him to laugh uncontrollably in unfortunate situations, including a moment where he gets assaulted on a train by some punks who won't even take the time of day to see Arthur pull out his "I have a medical condition" card. The only real solace and dream he has is a fantasy (amazingly shown via some camera tricks) to become a stand-up comedian inspired by his idol, the television anchor Murray Franklin (played by the amazing Robert DeNiro). 

Things go from bad to worse for Arthur Fleck as everything goes wrong for him. A revolver he takes for self defense falls out of his clown outfit in full view of children, the social services that provide his medication shuts down, he gets embarrassed in a stand-up comedy show in full view of Sophie and... and he kind of breaks. "It's enough to make anyone crazy."

Throughout all this, Arthur also ends up killing three drunk Wayne Enterprises employees that were harrassing a woman at a train... the first two die in a scuffle and self-defense, but Arthur hunts down the third. This leads into a spiral of events where other people in Gotham City began to see the 'clown' as a symbol to rally around against the wealth gap and against people like Thomas Wayne. 

Speaking of Thomas Wayne, there's also the ambiguous plot of Arthur's mother Penny who's deluded into thinking that Thomas Wayne is the father of Arthur... or is it really a delusion? We don't actually get an answer to this, just Arthur's reaction -- he goes to confront Thomas Wayne at the manor, where we get our Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth cameo. This confrontation leads to both Arthur's mother getting a stroke and being hospitalized, while Arthur's idol Murray Franklin mocks him on the late-night show, using Arthur's failed stand-up comedy routine to humiliate him further and call him a 'Joker'. 

Again, all of these plotlines slowly develop across the movie. Without going into detail -- there's also two cops investigating Arthur Fleck for the murders of the three Wayne Enterprises employees -- the movie does an amazing job at showing Arthur's slow mental breakdown as he slowly gets crushed by society around him, crushed by his idols and the people he look up to, and all of his own delusions being tossed in his face.

Arthur's confrontation with Thomas and his later breaking into Arkham Asylum to steal Penny's file seems to collaborate that Penny's actually delusional, though since the in-universe sources are ambiguous, who knows? And then in one of the movie's best twists, Arthur breaks into Sophie's house, only for Sophie to say that she's never actually met Arthur before. It's not a novel plot twist, but turns out that all the dates that Arthur has had with Sophie were all imagined in his head, and that the one source of goodness in Arthur's life is just a symptom of his madness. 

And then he goes absolutely nuts, smothering his mother in the hospital, killing one of his co-workers that lied about the revolver (while also sparing the one that treats him nicely) and then when he is invited to appear on Murray's show, the detective storyline and the 'clown cult' storyline reach a bit of a havoc as shots are fired and people are killed. Arthur adopts the mocking nickname of 'Joker' when he appears the show, before delivering an absolutely chilling delivery of confessing to the subway murders, giving a rant about how society steps on the downtrodden, and talks shit about Murray. Their argument escalates to Joker shooting Murray live on television, before running out to see riots being carried out in his name. 

And very interestingly, another huge tie-in to the Batman stuff is that the Wayne parents murders happen thanks to one of the clown rioters. I'm not sure if this part is necessary or if the Wayne stuff is best left to the rest of the background of the movie, but it's neat stuff. 

The movie ends with Joker dancing atop the chaos he creates before we flash into Arkham Asylum and it's implied that the whole movie is just Joker (potentially) remembering his (potential) origin story before he runs away chased by the orderlies. 

And... and end movie. This is a very, very unique movie in that I don't really think that any superhero comic-book movie has really tackled due to the very interesting topics that it broaches. It's very tightly plotted and there are a lot of great twists that help to build the amazing, amazing delve into the psychosis of a madman whose buttons are pushed too far by society, and through it all Joaquin Phoenix's acting -- including his mad gesticulations (some of which understandably become memes) really shines and brings this character to life. The movie alternates amazingly well between the depressing shit of a life that Arthur has to shocking brutality while weaving it all into a very tightly-told standalone story. While perhaps not something I would think of, the score and the scene compositions really also make the movie much, much more engaging. 

It's a very grand reinvention and highlight of the character that gives a pretty fresh take on a character (at least cinematically) while also not shying away from Joker's comic-book origins. It's an amazing standalone movie and while I am kind of disappointed that this isn't an epic buildup to a proper Batman franchise where one of the multiple live-action Batmen is going to face off against Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, this movie is so well done that it's really hard to complain.