Joker (2019, R)

Rounding out the last of the Best Picture nominees. I didn’t get around to Joker when it was in theaters because I wasn’t a fan of the “this isn’t a comic-book movie, this is cinema!” air wafting off of it, and I didn’t get to it during Oscar season because time was short and it wasn’t one of the movies I prioritized (a few spoilers.)

Arthur Fleck is troubled and down on his luck. In between caring for his mother and scraping by as a clown for hire, he aspires to be a comedian. The world seems set against him in every way, though, and a rage is building in Arthur. One night when, still dressed in his clown costume, he snaps, he unwittingly sparks a social revolution between the haves and have-nots of Gotham City.

This movie had a lot of discourse and controversy swirling around it, and ultimately, I think the hand-wringing is a little uncalled for. This is basically a villain origin story a la Once Upon a Time, whereupon the villain is an innocent milquetoast who comes to a breaking point after a calculatedly-sympathetic backstory that features them being stomped on from every direction. It’s a story that wants to have its cake and eat it too, letting you revel in the over-the-top villainy at the central character comes to in the end while simultaneously going, “It wasn’t his fault!” It got tiring on Once Upon a Time, and there’s nothing particularly revelatory about it here.

For me personally, the woobifying of Arthur/the Joker makes him less interesting to me as a character, and not just because of the cynical attempt at heartstring-pulling. More than that, he spends so much of the film in reactive rather than active mode, and sometimes not even that. We keep seeing how life is a thing that happens to him, and as each successive blow gets dealt, he mostly just tries to duck and/or roll over, only taking part in really making things happen in a few key scenes. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if the film spent more time in the transition phase, showing a more progressive descent into villainy instead of focusing so much on Arthur as more of a tragic doormat. It probably would’ve made him less sympathetic (or “sympathetic,” as the case may be,) but more interesting to me.

I don’t have a problem with gritty comic-book adaptations that heavily emphasize more real-world elements (see: The Dark Knight trilogy, Daredevil,) and I like it when comic-book adaptations blend superhero stuff with other genres (see: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man.) That said, I don’t really like it when they actively try to distance themselves from the fact that they’re comic-book adaptations, taking a very “not like those movies” attitude. That’s how Joker feels to me, kind of elitist and self-congratulatory, eschewing where it came from. Do your own thing and be inventive, get down and dirty, sure, but don’t put yourself above your peers. Come on now.

Joaquin Phoenix is of course tortured and eye-catching as Arthur. I can see why he got the Oscar, even though I wouldn’t say his was my favorite Leading Actor performance. The film also features (in much smaller roles – this is very much a star vehicle) the likes of Zazie Beetz and Brian Tyree Henry from Atlanta, Frances Conroy (Ruth from Six Feet Under,) and Robert de Niro.

Warnings

Violence, drinking/smoking, language, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements.