The Joker our times deserves.

Rating: 9/10 (6 October 2019)

I must admit that I was not really looking forward to this film, a standalone movie built around the greatest rogue in Batman's rogue's gallery, where the Caped Crusader would not appear. Plus I had some difficulty seeing Joaquin Phoenix in the part. Then I saw the trailer, and I was blown away, and after seeing the finished product, I am happy to say the hype was true, JOKER more than stands alone as a film, free from any Batman franchise, it is a masterpiece of the anti-hero genre, a film that shines a light in a dark, dark place, and is not afraid show us what is there. It is also a film that harks back to great era of film making, as director Todd Phillips has said his primary influences were TAXI DRIVER, and KING OF COMEDY, both directed by Martin Scorsese. This is more than reinforced by the casting of Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin, a glib talk show host who could easily be a successor to Jerry Lewis's Jerry Langford. There is also more than a little NATURAL BORN KILLERS and BIRDMAN in the mix as well, especially the latter, as we are often seeing events through the eyes of a mentally ill protagonist, and that what we are seeing on the screen at any given time might all be happening in his head.
One thing that must be said, JOKER is not a comic book movie, it's not based on some classic arc from DC comics, there is no convoluted plot, full of action and intrigue. The movie centers on Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, who is in literally every scene. Arthur is a marginalized citizen of Gotham City in the early 80's, a dark concrete and brick jungle, over run with predatory criminals, literally drowning in garbage. But the rot on the outside in nothing compared with what is festering inside Arthur, who makes a living, such as it is, as a clown, but there is clearly trauma and damage in Arthur's past, as evidenced by his uncontrollable outbursts of laughter at any given time. Arthur is saddled with an ailing mother, played by the superb Francis Conroy, who in the past was employed by the Wayne family. Arthur has delusions of being a comedian, a true clown upon the stage, welcomed by people like Franklin, giving joy and happiness to the world, but you can't give what you don't possess, and eventually Arthur starts giving back to this world twice over the pain it has inflicted on him. The pace of this movie is best described as a slow, but inexorable, circling of the drain, as Arthur descends into true madness, and in that madness, finds an empowering identity, and a legion of adoring followers, never mind all the corpses he leaves behind him. When does the victim become the predator, and when do we stop having sympathy for him? Those are some of the many questions JOKER asks, and leaves it up to the viewer to provide the answer.
Joaquin Phoenix does not give a performance, so much as a transformation; from the body language, to the weary voice, to the wary eyes, he creates what is destined to be one of the all time great psychos in movie history. It is a performance where so much is done with the face, from the glee in his eyes when Arthur entertains a room full of sick children, to the joy he beams when in one of his delusions, De Niro's Franklin asks him to come out of the audience and stand beside him on the stage, to the smoldering hurt writ on his face during his encounter with Thomas Wayne, played by Brett Cullen, and made up to suggest Donald Trump. To me, the iconic image of this film is Arthur, in full make up, dancing down the steps as he heads to a fateful appearance on the Franklin show. The other hero of this film is Todd Phillips, the director of comedies like OLD SCHOOL and THE HANGOVER. Phillips, who laments that he can no longer make the kind of bro comedies that put him on the map, has made the complete opposite of those films. In these times, when deranged nobodies, not unlike Arthur, become instantly notorious with acts of mass violence, Phillips has given us a glimpse of where some of this darkness comes from. Though it does seem incongruous that Phillips stages big protests against the wealthy at the dawn of the Reagan era, when the majority of the country was buying into supply side economics and the trickledown theory, the downside of which would only come much later.
I am sure the purists will complain that you can't have the Joker without Batman, Phillips does clearly ground this Gotham in a DC universe, just not maybe the DC universe of any future franchise, as the finale teases us with possibilities of what might be. One thing for sure, we do get one iconic image from the Batman origin that will forever link Arthur to Bruce Wayne, but the violence in JOKER, when it comes, hits like a gut punch, brutal and horrific, and nothing cathartic about it, the kind of bloodshed impossible to do in a big budget PG-13 super hero blockbuster. Maybe it's just as well, if, like Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin, his cinematic forefathers, we never see the like of Arthur Fleck again.
Where does Joaquin Phoenix's Joker stand when matched against Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, not mention Mark Hamill's voice work on BATMAN TAS or Cameron Monaghan's on TV's GOTHAM? I don't think it's a competition, each era gets the Joker it deserves, and who can deny that Phoenix's take the character is a perfect fit for ours.