Joker: Not Mad, Just Dissapointed

I try to go into each movie I plan to review with an open mind, allowing myself to take in the film with as few prejudices as possible. In some cases, it can be a little more difficult to do this as there are elements of the film that are problematic or beneficial from the outset. And in the case of Todd Phillips’s ‘Joker,’ it was downright impossible. For one thing, the Joker is one of many comic book characters who are best left without a backstory as he is meant to represent the randomness and unpredictability of chaotic, mad anarchy and giving him an origin story robs that theme of any mystique. Even the seminal Alan Moore one-shot ‘Killing Joke’ makes it clear that the Joker lore it presents is only hypothetical, a possible explanation for the clown prince of crime’s insanity. Then it was announced that the Phillips film would be rated R. Say it with me, Hollywood: Being more graphic doesn’t mean you’re more mature and being more mature doesn’t mean you’re better. But hey, Joaquin Phoenix is a hell of an actor, Phillips has done pretty well with half-hearted material before, and trailers looked like this might actually work. Therefore, I came into ‘Joker’ not unbiased, but at least balanced. So you can believe me when I say that watching it was a wholly aggravating experience.

‘Joker’ follows the origins of the titular supervillain, who begins as a down-on-his-luck clown named Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) living in a decrepit, 1980s’ era Gotham. Fleck’s unstable psyche is tested by his disassociated mother (Frances Conroy) and his unique neurological tic: a tendency to laugh out loud at inopportune moments. After being beaten on the street and loosing his job, Arthur kicks the plot in motion by inadvertently killing a trio of rich yuppies on a subway while still wearing his makeup from work, sparking a folk legend of a mysterious killer clown who enacts social justice upon the 1%. While the derelict undercity uses this clown as a figurehead mascot for their rising wealth inequality revolution, Arthur tries to use it to work through his unraveling stability, culminating in a fateful appearance on his favorite late-night variety show with his comedy hero, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Along for the ride are his neighbor and pseudo-girlfriend Sophie (Zazie Beetz), the patronizing billionaire Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullens), and a pair of lenient detectives (Shea Whigham and Bill Camp).

The main selling point of the film has been Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. He got a thunderous ovation when the film debuted at the Venice Film Festival and there’s already Oscar buzz surrounding his name. And I would be a liar if I said he doesn’t deserve pretty much all that praise and then some. His soft voice, tilted inflections, and otherworldly laugh give Arthur’s sensitivity and fragile sanity a sense of weight that feels real yet unnatural. The further he descends into madness, the firmer and more grounded his performance becomes, adding another layer of nuance to the film’s structure. It’s also a very physical performance. His laugh is almost painful and his muscular twitches as he resists or succumbs to his neurotic cackle require precise control. He uses interpretive dance and a false smile to work through and process his insanity, both of which become more and more horrifying as we learn about their origins. Joaquin’s visceral embellishments are the glue of the film, establishing himself as an unreliable narrator to an unfocused story that relies on both to work tandem.

If only the rest of the cast fared so well. Poor Zazie Beetz is still waiting for the rest of Hollywood to realize how good she is and her talent is wasted here with a surprise twist that anyone with half a brain cell can see coming from the get-go. Brett Cullens at least gets to have some fire in his performance, but his character is a one-note entitled prick, so he doesn’t have much meat to chew on. Even De Niro, one of the best actors of his generation, who is essentially just doing a reverse of his character from ‘King of Comedy,’ is doing the bare minimum to sell himself as a popular but lackluster television host. The only one even trying to match Joaquin in Frances Conroy, whose floaty, unfocused aura helps to drive the central mystery that serves as the primary subplot for the film.

On the other hand, the film looks fantastic. Every frame does well to convey the derelict environment of the inner-city in the early 80s and how it affects its variety of denizens. The cinematography sways and dips with Arthur’s dance of sanity and serves as a mirror to Joaquin’s performance in terms of quality. The art, set, and sound design elements are also balanced to reflect both the madness of the world, the society, and the character.

But looking good can’t save a movie and ‘Joker’ suffers from a few fatal weaknesses. First and foremost is lack of focus. The film is desperate to be about something, but can’t seem to decide on a lane to follow. It flickers back and forth between a condemnation of greed, a lamentation over the death of civility, and, at one point, a half-hearted criticism of political correctness. And it’s hard to determine which of these are intentional points made by director Todd Phillips and which of these are meant to be taken ironically based on Arthur’s interpretations thereof. There are a few good ideas that are being thrown around, like how society seems to be more focused on the origins of mental illness and how it manifests as opposed to how to treat it and how madness has different interpretations based on social and financial classes, but none of them seems to come to any definitive conclusion.

In the end, I left the theater with mixed feelings, namely a combination of frustration, appreciation, and déjà vu. I’d seen this movie before. Not in the sense that it was my second time seeing ‘Joker,’ but in the sense that I’d already seen ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘American Beauty,’ ‘Fight Club,’ ‘Dark Knight,’ ‘King of Comedy,’ ‘American Psycho,’ ‘Shutter Island,’ ‘Momento,’ ‘Death Wish,’ and about fifteen other films about deranged loners serving as unreliable narrators where the real evil was society the whole time. It’s the kind of movie that 14-year-old boys watch so they can feel dark and edgy and deep. We can only hope that they’ll one day wake up and realize that this isn’t a character that’s meant to be emulated and that frustrations with societal institutions and protesting against them doesn’t mean embracing mental illness and endorsing violence.

I’m not angry with you, ‘Joker,’ I’m just disappointed. I just feel like I’ve seen you before. And I liked you a lot better when you had a message worth listening to.

2/5.

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