Great Villain Film

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2020)

There is a lot of frustration at our inability to categorize Joker, and I think that's why it is so polarizing. The arguments go, "If it's a superhero movie, where's the usual fanfare and effects and fighting," as well as "If it isn't a superhero movie and is instead a think-piece, where's the message? Why is it morally ambiguous?" The answer is that we're watching a movie about a villain. And not even an anti-villain like say Ozymandias in "Watchmen" (2009) or an anti-hero like Walt Kowalski in "Gran Torino." This Joker villain is a more human archetype than the chaotic evil Heath Ledger's was.
We aren't used to seeing a true villain main character, nor do movies typically make us sympathize with them.
This character of Arthur Fleck is instead a loner whose disconnection from love, or any meaningful social interaction, for the entirety of his life has turned him into an emotionally anarchic villain. His inexperience has left him so inept at emotionally processing the negatives in his life that his superego is gone. Nothing is there to check his id, and thus he lashes out repeatedly when someone insults him, or threatens him, or makes jokes at his expense.
This is a *great* comic book movie because it displays the inner machinations of its villain without compromising on the humanity Arthur Fleck. He is not a villain with powerful abilities deadset on taking over the Earth. He's a man who doesn't know how to navigate society or other humans, making the character unrelatable and tough to sympathize with. Arthur Fleck could appeal only to our basic human needs like those listed in Maslow's Heirarchy; love, personal security, having a job, having real friends. Beyond that, his actions are morally reprehensible and even our greatest empathies could not trick us into feeling sorry for Arthur by the riotous finale.
Okay, so the messaging is unclear and the moral of the story isn't stated at all. But one main message throughout the film is the proletariat will rise up against the bourgeoisie, and that is pretty constant from beginning to end. However, I think the truer message for the comic book character Joker is that Arthur Fleck does not care about the political revolution he started. He just wants to be heard. He wants the attention. He only cares about himself. And in that final scene where he dances on the car, I finally understood that this was a movie about experiencing what it means to be utterly alone, through the eyes of a villain that is an ordinary human.