As tedious as a 4chan troll. Emo angst for Edgelords

Rating: 3/10 (12 January 2020)

Before getting to the film proper I must say I think the score is quite good. It is hauntingly beautiful and wonderfully atmospheric. It is a shame that the music has to be associated with the resulting film. The score repeatedly ends up putting a shine of the film that it truly didn't earn. I greatly dislike the film but the score is one of the year's best.
Anyway, there are any number of films that take on this general material of the alienated white guy who snaps because of the (alleged) mistreatment by society he receives. Just going from memory you have Taxi Driver (the film lifts the journal concept from it), King of Comedy (the film lifts the obsession with the comic from it), Falling Down (the exaggerated violence) and One Hour Photo (heavy handed symbolism). Joker most closely follows King of Comedy but it is a slew of all of these films. Quite frankly I don't think there is an original concept in the entire film. It all would be pitiable if such an aesthetic deserved pity.
Worse the film's overall structure just lends itself to tedium. Fleck is an unreliable narrator-any number of scenes occur within his psyche and much of the film you see is narrative untrustworthy. I am sure there is a clear tell between reality and Fleck's delusions (clocks always have the same time by way of example) Whatever the solution is I don't think it matters. You still dealing with a warmed over re-hash of white men feeling left behind by society changing. It is either a projection of theirs (which it is) or society doesn't care about white male pain. (laughable) Regardless, the extra work you need to do to put the narrative in proper context isn't worth it. Traditionally, the Joker's origins are unknown and I think the film raises the distinct possibility that Fleck isn't really the Joker. The film feels like it goes nowhere.
This emptiness is best captured by the only provocative moment in the entire film. For plot reasons I need not get into Fleck ends up in the Joker make-up *and* wearing a Joker mask. So a joker face is behind a joker mask. This mask-within-a-mask moment is central as the implication that Joker-ness is merely masks all the way down is too forceful to ignore. But if it is just masks all the way down the film is utterly unsatisfactory. The solution in the origin story film cannot be there is no solution. In any case, any number of scenes of Fleck being weird and edgy simply drag.
I suspect I am rather cool to the overall picture because I don't particularly like Phoenix's performance. It is one of those engaging but bad performances that people mistake for great acting. It is not going to age well. Whether it is the laughing-while-sobbing moments or the ponderous delivery of the overwrought lines Phoenix is working much too hard. The performance is all flash and much like the film it is constructed out of far better work.. There is a bit of Crispin Glover here. There is some Travis Brickle. Ledger's Joker was clearly studied. And so on.
It is simply perplexing that this film is making any waves at all in the award season.