Best joker

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2020)

Sam Roux
01/20/2020
"Who's Laughing Now?"
Joker (2019), directed by Todd Phillips, discovers an unreachable citizen who is supposed to give us an action packed show. Instead, we get a gut wrenching feeling as Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) fails to enlighten an audience with awkwardness and off-kilter humor. Arthur becomes lost through his mental illness and is displayed as a creepy and psycho character. Arthurs failure to connect with others due to his mental illness involves struggling depression where all he can say at points is "I just don't want to feel so bad anymore". For many, laughter can be the best medicine for sadness, anger, or confusion. Although, this statement is far from true for Arthur Fleck (Phoenix). The specific perception of Arthur leaves him with no friends and an intense, extensive struggle to maintain his job as a clown. Arthur continuously gets made fun of and receives failure to be understood which fumes anger and vengeance inside of him.
Much like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), Arthur was a lost soul because of the absent interactions in his life. They both enter a breaking point where the population pushes them too far mentally. For Arthur, this starts with picking various fights downtown. This becomes an uphill battle for Arthur because he was going unnoticed by almost everyone and all most all didn't care about welfare. As the plot lays out throughout the first part of the movie, the viewers create sympathy for Arthur because of his mental illness and how he is treated by others. The sympathy created is because of Phoenix's great acting and perception of his charter. He gives Arthur a caring, playful soul instead of a character full of self pity. Although, self pity is very apparent when Arthur starts lashing out. He goes after those who he feels have betrayed or gone against him which is why people say "well he got picked on and pushed to his limits, no wonder he acted out as such". Either way, Phoenix's acting and performance was next to none because of the facts that he lets the viewer decide the way they perceive the ill-humored Arthur Fleck.
Accustomed to being bullied, Arthur enjoyed having the "last laugh" for once. As a viewer, this became the biggest thrill with the movie. The suspense of all his anger finally piercing through his skin was a thriller and an occurrence wanted from the audience. This act was brewing inside of Arthur in which he finally snapped. This was a big plot shift in the movie where people started to perceive Arthur more of a villain than before.
Although this was a great acting experience by Phoenix, I felt that this movie lacked a theme along with absent sense of humor. Throughout the movie, although Arthur did evolve, there wasn't an evolving plot around him. Along with that, the humor displayed was taken differently from everyone around me when watching which I felt showed weakness. Overall, this was a great acting performance by Phoenix which many different types of people can connect to and follow along with easily.