Joker
Directed by Todd Phillips
Written by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver
Based on Joker by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson
Characters by DC Comics
Produced by Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper & Emma Tillinger Koskoff
Starring
Joaquin Phoenix
Robert De Niro
Zazie Beetz
Frances Conroy
Cinematography Lawrence Sher
Edited by Jeff Groth
Music by Hildur Guðnadóttir
Production companies Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures,
Bron Creative, Joint Effort & DC Films
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
I thought I had filled my quota for the year by watching “Have Yourself a Merry Little Batman.” Most superhero movies bore the hell out of me, endless fight scenes providing welcome respite from stilted dialog. But I was curious. The words “merry” and “Batman” don’t usually go in the same sentence. If you’re curious, it’s an animated Xmas special, not high budget but does have some clever bits and repartee that makes it worth watching next Christmas. Less mawkish than most such fare.
Joker was on those list of movies I’d heard good things about but never quite got around to actually seeing. And the fact is that the character Joker is perhaps the most gleefully malevolent entity in all of American fiction. Given half a chance, DC movies tend toward the dour and grim, and I had visions of the Clown Prince of Crime being played by the likes of Marlon Brando, or Lance Henriksen. But I had seen reviews that hailed Joaquin Phoenix as the best Joker ever, surpassing Jack Nicholson or the late Heath Ledger.
So New Years’ Eve, Netflix played it up as their star attraction of the evening, and we thought, OK, something light and non-realistic would fit the bill. Light on the intellect, but amusing.
Later, I explained to the editor over at Electric Review, “Holy. Fucking. Shit.” [Credit: Ring Lardner]
Joker is nothing short of astonishing. It’s the story of a deeply troubled man who is failed by his mother, the system, the culture, and the society. It’s the story of a slow decompensation, made inexorable and inevitable by a series of emotional, physical and psychological blows. To give you some notion, imagine if the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man had been directed by David Cronenberg. I also was strongly reminded of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, and not just because Robert De Niro was in both movies. Same situation: a paranoid loser and loner, cast adrift and deeply unmoored from a reality that was exogenically hostile.
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a man who in the best of times is barely clinging to survivability. He is delusional, paranoid, and to top it off, suffers from pseudobulbar affect (PBA), a condition that’s characterized by episodes of sudden uncontrollable and inappropriate laughing. It’s most likely to manifest in hostile confrontations, obviously the worst possible time. He lives with his mother, who is a semi-invalid with plenty of personality issues of her own. She is obsessed with obtaining financial help from Thomas Wayne, millionaire and father of Bruce Wayne, because she worked for him briefly 30 years ago and she believes that if Wayne knew of her plight, he would help. Every week for 30 years she has sent letters to Wayne, beseeching his help. The letters have all gone unanswered. Oh, and just by the by, Arthur is 30 years old. This ties in very neatly with Joker’s homoerotic fixation on Batman some 25 years later.
Arthur is on about a dozen different behavior-modification drugs. Or at least he was, until budget cuts eliminated the city program that was supporting him with both the medications and counseling.
And then the incidents that cause poor Arthur to totally unravel begin. He is able to land a job doing a twirly-sign street dance routine for a business that is closing. Some youths steal his banner, and when he gives chase, the youths ambush him and beat him savagely. He returns to his shop, where his boss tells him he’s on the edge of being fired, and that he must pay for the banner the youths stole. A co-worker, meaning well but horribly misguided, gives Arthur a gun to protect himself against future such attacks.
After that, one horrible event after another, some self-inflicted and some not, cascade down upon Arthur’s head. He gets a break in landing a gig toward his life-long dream of becoming a stand-up comedian. However, his pseudobulbar affect kicks in and all he can do is stand there and laugh at the audience. Unfortunately, this is videoed, and a copy makes its way to Arthur’s comedic idol, the most popular late-night TV host in the country (Robert De Niro) who proceeds to show it and mock Arthur mercilessly, calling him a joker. He ends up offering Arthur a chance to appear on his show the following week.
At this point, the Joker is born.
Some people have claimed that the movie vilifies or denigrates people with psychological disorders, but what happens to and with Arthur is an incredibly extreme situation. If his circumstances were remotely close to the situations the mentally ill deal with already, we would have a Joker on every street corner. Ipso facto…
Phoenix, who won an Oscar for his performance, lost fifty pounds (he was already slightly built) to play the notoriously emaciated and cadaverous Joker. And his performance is stunning. Truly, he is the best Joker.
Todd Phillips wrote, directed and produced this. He also did The Hangover and a sequel, both frat-bro deranged comedies made notable by being so completely over the top. Decent acting, good pacing, good story telling make a very silly movie worth-while. And Phillips isn’t done with Joker.
A followup Joker movie is coming, this one Joker and Harley Quinn. (I saw her in an animated Batman in which she rapes Robin. This is not the Batman of my youth. Good movie, though.). Harley has been Joker’s sidekick for years, just as murderous, just as crazy. Phoenix co-stars with Lady Gaga.
However, this movie, due out this summer, is a musical. Yes, a musical.
I can’t wait.