A slower psychological movie

Rating: 6/10 (14 March 2020)

This review contains spoilers.
Joker is a psychological thriller movie that premiered in 2019. The movie is based on the DC comics character Joker. The movie is directed by Todd Phillips, and written by Todd Phillips, and Scott Silver. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck a down on his luck party clown.
Joker is an interesting origin story for the titular character. The movie is a slow look at the insanity that Arthur Fleck descends into. He battles his psychological problems and discovers facts about his mother that disturb him. The movie focuses the 122 minutes of running time on Arthur Fleck as the audience sees his mental state deteriorating. The movie has an incredibly dark tone that should be commended. The movie explored the use of a villain as the main character and the setting of Gotham being a rundown urban city was the opposite of how Gotham is portrayed in other media. The city is much more threatening than how the city looked from Bruce Wayne's perspective.
Joker does not shy away from the unpleasant aspects of mental illness and destitution. The movie portrays the helplessness that is felt by someone like Arthur Fleck with accuracy. This character comes to identify the lower classes both in Gotham and in urban centers around the world. The idea of a character that does not stand for anything becoming a symbol is believable in this movie.
The movie is open to interpretation. As the first act of the movie ends, Arthur's medication is cut due to lack of funding at the mental center that he checks in at. The first act of the movie reflects reality but then later Arthur begins having delusions. These delusions plague on the audience interprets the movie as they only see the movie through Arthur's eyes. There is no other perspective in this movie. The other characters do react realistically but they react only to Arthur Fleck. The later portions of the movie become less believable as Arthur is executing seemingly impossible plans. The movie does try to ground the audience with real events by showing them through the television. This was an interesting approach but the movie becomes similar to other movies that this movie is a fan of. One of these movies is The King of Comedy (1982) where the entire ending finale is pulled from The King of Comedy. Much of Arthur Fleck's goals are similar to the goals found in The King of Comedy that it makes the movie feel less original.
Despite some of the problems in Joker's originality, Joaquin Phoenix's performance makes this movie. He is a perfect Joker and the actor masterfully reflects the descent into insanity that characterizes the Joker. I would recommend Joker.
Grade: B