Joker: Society’s Masterpiece
“We live in a society”, words that were uttered by meme makers made its way into Todd Phillips’ societal masterpiece Joker, a movie in which society betrays Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally disturbed “clown” who gets beaten by the unfairness of society. He loses his job for things that were not his fault, he wants to pursue a career in stand-up comedy but is laughed at by his idol, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), his social worker is closing shop, and he soon learns that his childhood wasn’t as bright and joyful as he remembered. After killing three people in self-defense, Fleck becomes a symbol for a riot of people in clown masks around Gotham City and, slowly, descends into madness to become the Joker.
This isn’t your typical superhero/supervillain origin story, but rather a nuanced character study on Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness. Those that expect Joker to be a bombastic, action-packed origin story on The Joker will be severely disappointed as the film distances itself from the Joker’s origin story in the comics and delivers one of the best character studies I’ve seen in recent memory. Obviously, Joaquin Phoenix gives a fantastic performance, in my opinion, his career-best. His performance is divided into two crucial elements
- Arthur Fleck: I was bubbling up most of the time during (almost) every single scene in which you see Fleck struggle with life in general. The best sequence that aptly describes Fleck’s mental state is when he fantasizes being on Murray Franklin’s show and telling stories about his mother. He isn’t very bright, per se, but speaks from the heart. The sequence is profundly brutal, because it gives you access to his imagination and his own fantasies, of him wanting to become a stand-up comic on with the same level of fame as Murray Franklin’s show. When Franklin mocks him in his show, he can’t take the mocking as a joke and takes it deeply personal. I used to be laughed at, bullied even, as a kid, and everyone kept telling they were “jokes”, but not to me. And that’s the nuance. What you think is a joke may not be for others, because you may not understand thatsaid person’s mental state. You can’t help but feel for Arthur as he struggles finding his calling in society, as it keeps rejecting him and giving him false hope. When he finds out, through a letter, that Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) may be his father, he goes to Wayne manor to find out if it’s true, but can’t accept reality head-on, as Alfred Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge) and Thomas himself tell him that these are all lies and her mother is delusional. When he learns that his mother adopted him, he refuses to believe the truth, until he goes to Arkham State Hospital to read a file on her. Fleck can’t process what he learns, because everything about his life was a lie. He then smothers his mother, after saying:
I used to think that my life was a tragedy. But now, I realize, it’s a fucking comedy.
When he comes back home, depressed and morose, he enters Sophie Dumont (Zazie Beetz)’s house, Fleck’s love interest, or so you thought. Everything involving her was part of Fleck’s own imagination, imagining what it would be like if Dumont would fall in love with her and have someone to care about. Fleck is alone, without anything to live for. All of the bad events in his late life lead him to become
2. Joker: This is where Joaquin’s performance goes from insane to absolutely nuts, as he becomes the Clown Prince of Crime, in his own right. The last 25–30 minutes are where Fleck becomes The Joker, and it is the best climax I’ve seen in any film in 2019. The build-up is fantastic, as Fleck gets invited to Murray Franklin’s show. At first, he decides to kill himself, live on air, until he realizes that this is an opportunity for people to finally notice him. He loses it on the air, and tells Murray that he’s just like everybody else in society, mocking him, not understanding who he is as an individual, and ultimately saying:
What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?!? I’ll tell you what you get! You get what you fucking deserve!
Fleck shoots him dead, which causes a movement in the streets of Gotham, solidifying the Joker as the sole responsible for street riots and protests, demonstrating their angst against megalomaniac Thomas Wayne, who gets killed in cold blood in the side-streets of Gotham alongisde Martha (again) in front of Bruce. The film doesn’t paint Thomas Wayne as a hero, but as a douchebag; a self-narcissistic prick who is partially responsible for Arthur’s downfall as an individual and his rise as The Joker. People cheered at his death, because we now know who Thomas really is; a self-driven individual in need of greed, who doesn’t care about the citizens of Gotham. Wayne says “I will lift citizens of Gotham out of poverty” which reminded me of a certain insurance broker, Andrew Scheer’s “I will lift Canadians out of poverty”. Both of them are self-indulgent individuals who only care about their own profit and serving their friends in the 1%. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but Thomas Wayne is basically Andrew Scheer. Well done Todd Phillips, well done.
Todd Phillips’ maestria as a director cannot be overstated. Every single frame, from Director of Photography Lawrence Sher is an absolute joy to soak in the eyes (especially in IMAX with the film being at a 1.90:1 aspect ratio for the entire runtime). It’s medicine for the eyes; the colors are staggeringly beautiful and you can’t help but say “wow” at every single shot the film produces. The use of slow-mo is, always, at the perfect moment, which couples Joaquin Phoenix’s terrific facial expressions that make his acting performance rise like a true “Phoenix” and soar to become one of the best on-screen iterations of the Joker that washes Jared Leto’s hackneyed “attempt” at Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. We see a confident Phillips that moves away from his work in Old School and in The Hangover (now considered woke shit) to a serious drama with soul-stirring cinematography, a fantastic soundtrack that beautifully couples the visual art that he and Lawrence Sher created, a career-defining performance from Joaquin Phoenix, a fun performance from Robert De Niro, a great Zazie Beetz and despicably fantastic Brett Cullen to make Joker unlike anything you’ve seen in Comic Book Movie history. While Martin Scorsese might think that the MCU is “not cinema” (he’s right ya know, but that doesn’t mean the movies are still fun), out comes Warner Bros./DC with a film that is pure cinema; it has the balls to paint society as the greatest villain of all, with a bombastic finale that will leave you completely speechless. This makes a great double feature with Monia Chokri’s La femme de mon frère. (Just sayin’)
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