It’s not what you would expect from a supervillain film. Todd Phillips’ Joker is a gritty realistic take on the character. It’s a dark tragic tale that treats its bedraggled antihero with great sympathy and insight, resulting in a memorable but dismal story that feels like a low budget independent film.
The film is set in 1981, when Bruce Wayne is still a young boy and only appears briefly at the end of Joker, setting up the personal clash between these iconic characters. What’s not well known is how this insecure and tormented man who works as a party clown, is driven to be one of the most feared villains in Gotham.
The Gotham City of Joker is a shadowy, crime ridden, rat infested retro New York City of the 70s and 80s as seen in Scorsese’s early films reinforced by a bleak gloom drenched visual palate. Arthur Fleck is a kind of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (1976) seemingly quiet and gentle, trying to bring some joy into his drab world as a party clown and aspiring stand-up comic, but inside he harbors rage and anger.
He’s mentally unstable, and his strange medical condition that makes him laugh uncontrollably when he is nervous or under stress makes people uncomfortable. They sometimes think he’s mocking them, which can get him into trouble with the wrong people.
But Arthur tries hard to see the positive side of life in the face of his misery. He always tries to be honest and do the right thing. His mother tells him to “always smile and put on a happy face”. But it just seems to make things worse and society just keeps pushing him to the limits of tolerance.
The city’s denizens eventually get the better of him and in fact, he does get into trouble with the wrong people. He is bullied, name called and violently beaten up because of his clownish cackle, which can be analogous to the stigma of mental illness.
Joaquin Phoenix’s moving portrayal is convincingly creepy as a man on the verge of being unhinged. His performance as someone who seems to constantly be on the brink between love and hate is scary and mesmerizing to watch. He makes Arthur Fleck a sympathetic character who society has pushed too far until a revelation about his past sends him over the edge.
Joker, in his first stand-alone film, is a disturbing, shocking and painful vision that reflect our own angry hate-filled and corrupt times. It’s an uncompromising and uniquely intimate character study done with great empathy and shown through an unsentimental lens that talks directly to our fears and insecurities as a society at large. Icelandic composer extraordinaire, Hildur Guonadottir’s cello score is not only hauntingly beautiful but also perfectly evocative of Arthur’s tragic journey into mayhem. She was also the cellist on Sicario (2015) and The Revenant (2015), and recently won the golden globe for the Joker music and an Emmy for the award-winning TV series Chernobyl.
Joker is nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Hildur’s music score, the most of any film this year, which is a testament to its powerful appeal.
JP
