Movie Breakdown: Joker (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
I have been standing to the side of the enormous swirling maelstrom of hype/anti-hype/fear-mongering craziness that this film is bobbing up and down in and quietly deciding to dislike everything about it.
Post-Screening Ramble:
Todd Phillip’s Joker is, at the very least, a well-made movie. Here, the origin story (a origin story?) of Batman’s greatest villain is set in a gritty, sleazetastic, late-’70s Gotham City about to burst under the strain of a burgeoning war between the haves and have-nots. Enter Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a former mental patient living with his mother as the strings that connect him to reality are slowly cut. Simply put: things don’t go so well for Mr. Fleck and his murderous reaction snowballs into something much greater. Joaquin Phoenix is outstanding in this film, absorbing the darkness of Fleck into every molecule and pushing them out in a sinuous, disturbed performance that will certainly draw the coveted comic book Oscar buzz we’ve all expected. Yet, Joker as a film is lacking, dangerously so, in any comment on what it’s portraying. What Phillips has created is a film designed to look like it is addressing a handful of issues – mental health, guns, the class war brewing in America – but instead it circles the harder questions inherent in its existence. This is a film about a mental patient abandoned by the system who responds by becoming a murderer of many, many people and beyond that becomes the symbol of an equally violent revolution that results in the death of who knows how many more innocents. In the context of our time – when we are suddenly reminded of the violent undercurrent looming below the surface of America – a film like this, whether it wants to or not, is making a point. But, Phillips, a director known for brainless comedies about men doing brainless things, seems to have no concern with what that point might be. Instead Phillips has crafted a story rife with disturbing images and actions and characters who do terrible things to one another, but he makes no attempt to make any point about any of it. Instead, we are left with a film that hits us over and over and over again with just how dark and gritty and fucked up it is, but leaves us at the end struggling to grasp if all the grimness means anything at all.
One Last Thought:
In true Phillips-fashion there are some tasteless jokes in this film that fall even flatter because of the “serious” atmosphere they’re presented in. Not a fan.
Another Last Thought:
This film didn’t need to exist in the DC Universe. The loose loose connections between Arthur Fleck and the Wayne Family (especially the ending) add nothing for comic book fans and act as a confusing detriment for those who might’ve just wanted to see a movie.
And Another Last Thought:
As much as this seems like one-and-done, I can absolutely see this becoming a soft pilot for a new, gritty DC Universe when it makes a gazillion dollars and nets Phoenix an Oscar.
