Movie Review Joker

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2019 – Spoiler alerts The Batman’s greatest enemy has had many powerful unforgettable performances, Caesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill (in animated versions), Heath Ledger, and Jared Leto among them. Fans will argue ad infinitum as to who did it best. (Ledger generally winning in most polls). Joaquim Phoenix’s take on the character is very different in moving very much to the reality of US politics, poverty, welfare cutbacks and mental health awareness. Arthur Fleck is already a man on the edge as the movie starts, facing cutbacks in the welfare program that pays for his medications, struggling as a clown for hire in a World where people beat up clowns to make their own fun, and supporting his confused mother, Penny (who he dotes on to a point bordering on incestuous). Arthur’s unfortunate Tourettes-like tendency to laugh at non-funny moments leads him to even hand out business cards apologizing for such outbursts. He is out of sync with what many find funny, as seen when he watches a stand up comedy act, laughing between the jokes. His own attempt at stand-up goes disastrously and gets him mocked cruelly on a David Letterman style late night talk show hosted by Robert De Nero. His part in the movie ties it neatly to the style and mood of two of De Nero’s own films, Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy. Arthur is in many ways an amalgamation of Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) and Rupert Pupkin, (The King Of Comedy) both directed by Martin Scorsese. After a battering in the streets, a fellow clown rashly gives Arthur a gun to defend himself, which he accidentally produces while trying to entertain sick children, getting himself fired. We really see Arthur go off the rails (no pun intended given the train setting of the scene) on a Gotham City train, when laughing (unintentionally) as three men try to sexually abuse a lady passenger, only for them to assault him, at which point he uses the gun to kill them. He latere claims it was their bad singing that led to his action notthe sexual abuse. His action has a Death Wish movie knock on effect with many vigilantes and crooks rampaging the city in clown costumes. Arthur is an unreliable witness, who imagines he is having an affair with a sympathetic neighbour, Zazie Beetz who he eventually freaks out when he invades her apartment while distressed over his mother’s stroke. The mother is another catalyst in Arthur’s descent into total insanity. She herself has mental health issues and claims Arthur may be her lovechild to Thomas Wayne, millionaire industrialist and father to the as yet child, Bruce Wayne, later to become Batman. With Thomas Wayne loudly denouncing the clown violence as the work of sickos, adopting a very conservative stance, his TV appearances lead Arthur to try to reach out to him about his mother. He initially approaches Wayne Manor, meeting the young Bruce, who is sliding prophetically down a playground pole. Arthur tries to make the already morose boy smile, but gets chased off by the butler (un-named but undoubtedly PAlfred Pennyworth) who sees Arthur as a potential child molester and shows even less sympathy to him on learning his identity. Arthur then meets Thomas Wayne who points out that Arthur is not his son, but adopted, and subjected to abuse by an un-named step-father and possibly by his mother who at best did nothing to prevent his ill-treatment too. Arthur now goes on a murderous rampage. We don’t see him leave his good neighbour’s flat or see her and her child again implying that he might have killed them off-screen. He does savagely kill his clown friend, Glenn Fleisher though lets their dwarf colleague get away alive. Arrested, he is freed in the riots the clowns have started after one is accidentally shot by a cop pursuing Arthur, while another clown kills the Wayne parents in the classic back alley Bruce Wayne to Batman origin moment. Thomas Wayne is depicted not only as wealthy but ultra- establishment and conservative. He is a Trumpian figure. Criminals are to be regarded with contempt, as clowns and crazies. Mental illness is something to be locked away on diagnosis. Could his rather right wing values be carried over by the son when old enough to don his own mask? A point not considered by any critic or commentator is the coincidence of Alfred Penny-worth & Penny sharing similar names. While Thomas Wayne being Joker’s father is ruled out (preventing him being Bruce’s step-brother) could Alfred be Arthur’s real father? Meeting the young Bruce, who is sliding prophetically down a playground pole. Arthur tries to make the already morose boy smile, but gets chased off by the butler (un-named but undoubtedly Alfred Pennyworth) who sees Arthur as a potential child molester and shows even less sympathy to him on learning his identity. Could he be afraid of expose to his fatherhood of the young man before him? It is a fierce tearing away of comic strip escapism to a relentlessly grim real world underside, crawling as Gotham is described with giant rats. Just how sick is Joker? He dances to the opening bars of Gary Glitter’s Leader Of The Gang as the rioters venerate him on the mean streets. Joker, incarcerated in Gotham Ayslum, may not even be The Joker (the absence of the definitive article in the title is important). That could be any of the clown-killers he has inspired after all, in the comics his true name and origin are rarely touched on. The finale is V For Vendetta in negative, with the streets swarming with clowns with very unfunny agendas. There is also a savage reversal of the Killing Joke here, as Arthur tells a psychiatrist that she just won’t get what is so funny about his thinking. He’s right, we see only the horror and despair. Joker has spilled from the comic book realm into the real World and no one can find him funny any more. Hints of Death Wish too with its critical stance on vigilantism leading to fears of copy-cat activity much as the much misunderstood original Michael Winner movie did too. Arthur Chappell