What Do We Do With "Joker"?

"Joker," as a character piece about a man named Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a fine and moving piece of cinema, bolstered by Phoenix's performance in particular. However, the film also sits in the complicated intersection of several cinematic legacies and influences that make its digestion much more difficult. And then there's the matter of the terrible timing of its release, as it is none-too-subtly capitalizing off of various strains of present day social unrest, and has several media commentators so spooked, "Joker" is being treated like the next "Do the Right Thing" in some circles.

So what do we do with a "Batman" prequel that is also an homage to Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," and problematically glorifies the vigilante outsider in 2019? Well, let's take this thing apart piece by piece. First and foremost, the idea that "Joker" is an incitement to violence and anarchy is overblown. "Joker" contains a few allusions to Bernie Goetz and Occupy Wall Street, the same as "The Dark Knight Rises"and "Taxi Driver," but its messages are too muddled to really connect to the real world. You can definitely read the triumph and elevation of the Joker character, who inspires riots and other acts violence against the privileged, as encouraging of fringe actors, but not more so than most "man against the system" films. I'm sure that certain Joker fans could take the movie as a call to action, but it's a stretch. The Joker in this film may be more sympathetic, but as antiheroes go, he's still a pretty horrific one.

Also, "Joker" is a period film, which has a certain distancing effect. It takes place in the grungy, crime-riddled New York City-playing-Gotham of the 1970s and 1980s. Director Todd Phillips borrows a lot from Scorsese cinematically, and makes no secret of it. Arthur Fleck haunts many of the same trash-strewn streets and echoes many of the same antisocial thoughts that Travis Bickel and Rupert Pupkin once did. Robert DeNiro even plays the pivotal role of Murray Franklin, a talk show host who Arthur watches obsessively and fantasizes about interacting with. But though Phillips successfully employs some of Scorsese's techniques, and Lawrence Sher's doing career best work as cinematographer, it's only the rare moment that they capture anything close to the same verve and psychological insight. This is a very shallow film, lacking in irony, and without much of an ideology beyond generating a little sympathy for the clown.

The bulk of the film's pleasures come down to the performance of Joaquin Phoenix, as this damaged, tortured creature who inhabits the same existential real estate as a Scorsese character, but is far more wretched. There's a rawness and uncomfortable physicality to everything he does, similar to his work in "The Master." The way his mental illness manifests, the use of the clown makeup as a motif, and the constant, physical abuse that he suffers and learns to dish out, are fascinating to watch. The famous Joker laugh is reframed as the product of a neurological condition, something that Arthur can't control. The first sections of the film, where he struggles to take care of his ailing mother (Frances Controy) and survive the whims of a cruel social order, are by far the most successful. As the film gets into comic book territory, it takes a turn for the worse.

Finally, we have to reckon with "Joker" as a Batman film, and this is the least successful and satisfying part of the whole venture. Phoenix successfully pulls off a new take on the Joker that references the best parts of the previous incarnations - Cesar Romero's whimsy, Jack Nicholson's menace, and Heath Ledger's anarchy. However, the attempts to tie the character to the Wayne family and all the little easter eggs and references that appear throughout aren't too compelling. The script toys with adding certain relationships and connections, but mostly doesn't follow through, content to let certain pivotal events play out exactly as we expect them to. Having Arthur's story set in Gotham makes little difference at all, and seems to exist as an excuse to let Phillips and crew flirt with superhero imagery. The third act has some huge riffs on the Joker sequences in "The Dark Knight."

"Joker" does, however, create some entirely original moments that are difficult to shake. There's the scene where Arthur empties the refrigerator and climbs into it, trying to his escape his miseries. There's the already iconic dance on the stairs, the escape of the midget, and a trail of bloody footprints. Once you cut away all the excess and the nostalgia, there's still a worthwhile movie here. It's a smaller, sadder film than it's billing itself to be, and the ending is a bit of a mess, but it's worth seeing.

It is not, however, worth nearly the amount of fuss that it's caused.
---