Joker Movie Review
I like to keep my reviews pretty honest. So I’m going to begin by saying I did not in any way want to see Joker. I put it off, hoping that it wouldn’t be nominated for anything so I could skip it. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love comic book movies. This movie just seemed very problematic to me. However, Joker got nominated at basically every major award show so I resigned myself to seeing it.
In this depiction of the familiar storyline, the Joker is failed comedian, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). Most of the early scenes are dedicated to showing how society has mistreated Fleck. He gets beaten up several times and his coworkers don’t have his best interests at heart. It’s revealed that his mom is mentally ill and there’s an odd twist with Thomas Wayne that is supposed to show us Wayne’s evil side. All of the bad things that happen to Fleck combined with his mental troubles (none of which are ever explicitly described, other than a glib mention of some type of head trauma which causes uncontrollable bursts of laughter) push him into a massive crisis moment where he goes on a gleeful killing spree.
I’ve seen the Joker portrayed in a myriad of ways by a variety of actors and I will commend Phoenix on a truly exemplary performance. His physical transformation is phenomenal and he commits to the role whole-heartedly. He deserved that Oscar nomination and win, no doubt about it.
My issue was the movie as a whole. Director and writer Todd Phillips tried his best, but instead of a deep dive into the psychological aspect of what makes the Joker the Joker, he comes up with something that barely scrapes the surface. There was nothing novel to love about this story. It had the potential (especially with the powerhouse performance of Phoenix) but none of the beats hit quite right. For me, they didn’t quite add up to a compelling narrative about the Joker’s origin. The narrative somehow made his rise as the Joker feel insignificant.
Unlike the sheer terror that was evoked in The Dark Knight when Heath Ledger’s Joker video tapes himself with the captured Batman impersonator, Phoenix’s Joker failed to instill any type of fear in me. That would be okay, except for he didn’t instill much pity or empathy in me either. I blame that on the screenplay and direction and not Phoenix’s performance. Overall, Joker left me underwhelmed but applauding the acting abilities of Joaquin Phoenix who has cemented himself as one of the most dynamic actors working right now.
Film or Movie: Movie
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You love the DC world of Batman and want to see a fresh rendition
2. You want to have a debate about the best portrayal of the Joker
3. You want to see a phenomenal performance from Joaquin Phoenix
