Joker

If you forget your preconceptions and watch this film with an open mind, it’s a challenging, unsettling and uncompromising character study, that has more in common with psychological thrillers like Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler than it does with any comic-book movie.

Premise: In 1981, Gotham City is a powder keg on the verge of exploding, with social unrest, economic collapse and a widening gulf between the “haves” and the “have nots" threatening to tear the city apart, while an ongoing garbage strike turns the city into a literal sewer. Against this backdrop, impoverished party clown Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) attempts to look after his aged mother while also struggling with his own mental health issues.

Review:

There are a lot of things that need to be discussed about Joker‘s context in the wider world, before we can even get started talking about the film itself. Firstly, there’s the question of how it fits into established Batman continuity, and the simple answer is – it doesn’t. Not only does Joker sit outside the continuity of the Christian Bale, Ben Affleck and upcoming Robert Pattinson movie versions of Batman, it doesn’t really even fit with any recognisable version of either the “Batman” or “Joker” characters. So you could spend the whole film thinking that none of what’s happening makes sense within the established history of these characters – but you’re better off just leaving all that baggage behind and working on the principle that this all takes place in an “Elseworld”/”What If?” style alternate universe, where there is no “Batman”, and even by the very end of the film, Joaquin Phoenix’s character is still not any version of the “Joker” that I recognise from the comics.

That brings us to the second controversial issue, which is how the film depicts an individual who ultimately becomes a mass murderer. There have been allegations that Joker attempts to justify the actions of a character that is (arguably) similar to the personality-type of real-life mass-shooting murderers and other members of the “incel” community, but in all honestly, I don’t agree. Firstly, I don’t think the film is trying to justify all of the actions of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix); I think that like any good character study, the film is attempting to explain how the character evolved in the way he does, and so it obviously attempts to generate sympathy for Arthur Fleck in the early parts of the film. But as he become more extreme, I think the film presents his actions to the audience in such a way that your empathy is meant to be replaced by revulsion – and if you end the film thinking that it’s a sympathetic portrayal of a mass murderer, it may say more about your baggage than the filmmakers’.

“…both an unflinching character drama & a cautionary social commentary…”

Secondly, I think it’s an over-simplification to blame a film like this for potentially inciting real-world violence. The link between violence in entertainment (of any form) and violence in the real world is a thorny subject at the best of times, but arguably the most controversial films are those that seek to desensitise the audience to the onscreen violence. In Joker, the acts of violence have the opposite effect, shocking the audience out of its complicity in Fleck’s actions. Following in the footsteps of other psychological thrillers that are also uncomfortable watches, like 1976’s Taxi Driver and 2014’s Nightcrawler, Joker does not hold its main character up as a hero, even if other characters in the film itself might do.

With all that in mind, I think Joker deserves to be discussed alongside films like Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler, as being a film that is both an unflinching character drama and a cautionary social commentary. Make no mistake, although Joker is set in a fictionalised Gotham City in the year 1981, the social issues it tackles are those facing us today: economic hardship, social decay, and a widening gulf between a disenfranchised and disillusioned populace struggling to make ends meet, and the “1%-ers” who, at worst, don’t care about those struggling in poverty, and at best, are so out of touch that they no longer even know how to help.

“…a wake-up call to tackle the social issues that lead to the film’s violent denouement…”

This problem is personified in Joker by the character of Thomas Wayne (Bruce Wayne’s father), played brilliantly by Brett Cullen. Thomas Wayne is a character who has been interpreted in many different ways over the years (from being a crusader for justice in his own right, to being corrupt and in the pockets of crime bosses), but this version pitches him as a well-intentioned but misguided mayoral candidate. Thomas Wayne appears to want to help drag Gotham’s marginalised population out of poverty, but the billionaire is so out of touch with the everyday concerns of the electorate that he cannot relate to them, and comes across as detached and aloof, living in an ivory tower and going on TV to attack those who he accuses of being envious of people more successful than them.

It’s in this regard that the social commentary elements of Joker are most biting. While I don’t agree that Joker is attempting to excuse the ultimate acts of violence that unfold as the film progresses, I do think it’s a wake-up call to tackle some of the social issues that lead to the film’s violent denouement. The film is very critical of the way that social services, particularly in relation to support for those struggling with mental health issues, is always one of the first things to be scrapped when economic cut-backs are made. In fact, the closest the film comes to pointing a finger of blame for the tragic events of the film is when it’s addressing America’s failure to provide adequate support for sufferers of mental illness. That, combined with the fact that those in power (even well-meaning philanthropists like Thomas Wayne) have no idea of the struggles facing those trapped in inescapable cycles of poverty, are certainly the main takeaway warnings from the film.

“…a character study carried by Joaquin Phoenix’s mesmerising performance...”

But as much as this film does have some interesting things to say about wider social issues, Joker is ultimately a character study carried by one actor’s mesmerising performance, and Joaquin Phoenix deserves just as much recognition as Robert De Niro’s and Jake Gyllenhaal’s award-nominated performances in Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler. Joaquin Phoenix’s physical transformation is astonishing, and not just in the sense that he lost a lot of weight for the role, but also in the way he moves and carries himself through his transformation from the downtrodden Arthur Fleck to the callous Joker. He’s almost never off-screen as the film is very much told through his eyes – which creates some intriguing ambiguities for the audience, as Arthur Fleck is clearly an unreliable narrator. This does leave some lingering questions for the audience regarding what is real and what is not as the end credits roll.

Ultimately, director and co-writer Todd Phillips has managed an impressive balancing act, creating a film that is clearly inspired by Martin Scorsese’s earlier works, but which also feels like a new spin on the psychological thriller genre. Joker is far better than I feared it would be when the project was first announced, and although he’s joined by a great supporting cast of character actors (including impressive turns from Zazie Beetz and Robert De Niro himself), it’s unquestionably Joaquin Phoenix’s performance that really makes this such a haunting and unsettling experience.