Great performance and cinematography, but that alone is not enough...

Rating: 6/10 (26 November 2019)

The title of my review sums up my opinion on the matter. The movie is deserving of praise if only based on the willingness of the studio to commit a superhero/villain movie to such controversial themes. The performances and cinematography (i.e., camera-work, set-pieces) are great as well. Also, I must admit it is a relief to have a movie not feel the need to darken it's color-palette to emphasize the severity of its subject matter. In fact, in some cases, I found the contrast of brightly lit set-pieces and violent imagery all the more grating (in an understandably good way that is conducive to the atmosphere of the scene).
However, the movie can only be said to give a vapid impression of what makes the Joker... the Joker. Certainly with a character who is known to revel in chaos, one might expect ambiguous motivations to be a good thing. But beyond all the mishaps that happen to him throughout the movie, I struggle to see how the film's emphasis on social circumstance and mental illness point him towards the future: a future that has the Joker feel compelled to bring others into the fold of anarchy and chaos.
That is to say that the Joker's origin feels like nothing more than a personal biography that does not reconcile his origin with his future self. Initially, bad things happen to him and he feels powerless over what to to do. But leading up to the conclusion of the movie, the Joker's newfound empowerment finds no outlet. If Nolan's Joker was an agent of chaos, then this Joker is just some guy who has found it in himself to walk with a little more swagger. This Joker might have carved out his own place in the world, but we do not know why or how that equates to leading others down the same path.
All in all, the movie was a fun watch and I would recommend it to anyone curious, but I would not go so far as to say it is groundbreaking. The performances in the movie might be grounded, but they are grounded in a movie that doesn't have any sense of direction beyond establishing why a bad person might do bad stuff. As such, the movie is vapid and generic. Which is a pretty bad assessment, considering the massive cultural appeal behind the Joker's character. Honestly, I am not sure the movie even had to be about the Joker and that should say enough.
6/10, it's a good movie.