Joker is no laughing matter

Rating: 8/10 (8 October 2019)

I was worried before I watched Joker: another film hyped to unachievable expectations off the back of extensive media campaigns and a comic book conception. Further to this, there was always a shadow over this production - trying to equal the supreme performance of Heath Ledger in the same role a decade before. Thankfully, Joker is not only an excellent piece of cinema, but also makes a clear definition between Joaquin Phoenix's (Arthur Fleck) and Heath Ledger's (The Joker) characters. The issue with "Suicide Squad" (other than the generally awful quality of the film), is that Jared Leto was trying to create a persona of the same notions as Ledger. Phoenix forges his own direction by not being a villainous antagonist for a superhero story, but being a mentally unhinged loser who finds his own direction in a city that has none.
Joker charts the development of Fleck into the eponymous role through stages of transformation. He begins as a man down on luck, money and friends, shackled by a mental illness and a debilitated mother. Fleck's relationship with his neighbour Sophie, played by Zazie Beetz ("Atlanta", "Sorry To Bother You"), is particularly brilliant, with the directing decisions making each scene hard to delineate into fiction or reality. From the first half hour, suddenly you see Fleck's change of heart: a newfound confidence, a loss of moral direction, and a spark of ambition. To this end, Joaquin Phoenix has mastered the role, tailoring his movements and tendencies to reflect his own image of Joker. An Oscar nomination for him seems likely, and a win wouldn't be unbelievable, especially given the press around this production.
The city of Gotham personifies everything in Fleck's own life; civil service cuts and strikes mean rubbish is piling up in the streets, and sewer rats run wild above ground. Lawrence Sher's cinematography enhances this vision, using extended shots of graffitied subways and brutalist architecture to cultivate a city without soul. An extension of this is the people of Gotham. Nobody is a good person without a motive - even Thomas Wayne, the city's talisman, is an elitist who despises the working class. From this, you can see that Gotham is on the verge of a revolt, with civil unrest simmering below the dirty exterior of a metropolis long past its prime. To help inspire these scenes, an exemplary soundtrack from Hildur Guðnadóttir gives each moment more gravitas, and I would not be surprised to see her soon regarded in the same category as Hans Zimmer and John Williams.
Those who go into Joker expecting a semblance of a superhero film will be sorely disappointed, and avoiding comic book tendencies is totally the correct move from Todd Phillips. This is not a hero/villain story, but a plot with its own dynamic, trying to develop sympathy with mental illness. Unfortunately it appears they could not, however, go an entire film without referencing Batman at all, and a shoe-horned in homage to the comic book ancestry somewhat spoils the emotional tension of the film. No doubt this is also a seriously graphic film, and should have even an 18 release without a doubt. A couple of scenes in Joker are legitimately some of the best I've seen this year: one act involving Fleck, a couple of clowns and some scissors in his apartment is potentially the cinematic masterpiece that could set this film apart from the rest.
This is not, however, the perfect film, and for all its brilliance, some of the issues do remove you from the setting to a degree. Robert De Niro (who plays Gotham talk show host Murray Franklin) is wooden and uninspiring, but I can't tell if this is due to him actually playing the role well, or just being an average actor. I understand that saying such sacrilege against De Niro is tantamount to heresy, but in recent years I believe he has lost some range in his acting ability (see De Niro's recent films - "Dirty Grandpa", "Last Vegas" - and tell me I'm wrong).
Strangely, even though Joker was enjoyable to watch, I don't think it inspires rewatching: it was uncomfortable viewing at times, but delivers an important and powerful story. Regardless, this is still undeniably some of the best cinema this year, and deserves your attention, even just for its devotion to explaining the fragility of humans' mentalities.