Joker (2019) - Movie Review

Well… here we go. What is most likely to be the most contentious theatrical release of 2019. A film that has audiences and critics so divided that the range goes from “this film is great” to “this film will inspire mass murderers”. Not much wriggle room in there, no matter what my opinion on this is. And yeah, while I’m somewhat mandated to get into the controversy surrounding this production, that’s only half the story. The other half is the film itself, and quite frankly, this is one worth talking about one way or another because, holy shit, this is a genuinely great film.

I have seen most if not all iterations of Batman’s greatest archnemesis on the big and even small screen. Cesar Romero’s madcap harlequin, Jack Nicholson’s demented artist, Mark Hamill’s extremist comedian, Heath Ledger’s agent of anarchy, Jared Leto’s gangsta with a hard A, and that’s without getting into the numerous versions of him that have graced the printed page over the last several decades. All of them have their positives and different takes on the material, one whose ever-shifting psychology is a central part of the character. Joaquin Phoenix is the first time I’ve seen a cinematic Joker that well and truly terrified me.

Part of that effect is down to the production crew on hand, all of whom are on their A-game. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher gives every frame a grungy, beaten-down texture that makes the abject horror of what’s happening on-screen feel that much more real. Credit also to director Todd Phillips, better known for the ‘one good movie in a three movie series’ Hangover films, as this is easily the film-iest film he’s ever filmed. It’s the self-imposed grit and darkness of Zack Snyder’s DC work, but supplanted into an environment and character arc that outright requires that amount of dour. Oh, and there’s Hildur Guðnadóttir’s soundtrack work, which immediately raises the tension and only grows more frighteningly chaotic from there.

But for the most part, it’s down to Joaquin’s performance, looking as emaciated as Christian Bale in The Machinist and with about as healthy a grip on reality. The depiction of his mental state, which takes a very clinical turn in how it shows hereditary mental illness and inadequate health facilities (Arkham Asylum being a shitty mental hospital, no matter what medium it’s shown in, is almost a punchline in itself with its revolving-door policy in the Batman universe) and the effect they had on him.

As insane as his character is, the way that his decline is shown makes it difficult not to feel sorry for him, even a little bit. When it shows his diary where he has written down “The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t”, I actively felt a lump form in my throat. It’s so accurate to my own experiences as someone with mental illnesses, it’s almost as terrifying as the Joker himself.

There’s also the Scorsese influence to get into, as Phillips himself admitted that he took inspiration from some of his late-70’s-early-80’s work in creating this film. And yeah, it definitely shows through in the finished product. Like The King Of Comedy, it’s about a failed comedian who dissociates between fantasy and reality to give a more personal insight into what makes him tick. Like Raging Bull, it’s about a man who sinks further and further into the void until he loses the few people close to him. And like Taxi Driver, it’s about a mentally-disturbed working-class joe who, even with all the highly questionable things he does, is turned into an urban icon by a media and a populace that don’t know any better.

There’s also how people thought King Of Comedy were also going to inspire copycat murderers when it first came out (and how Taxi Driver actually did with John Hinckley Jr., yet I don’t see anyone lambasting that film for the same reasons they are with this) and here’s where I’ll briefly get into the moral panic shit that has pretty much overridden any discussion of the film itself. To an extent, I get the criticisms about this being incel fuel: The Joker is a popular icon in that sector of the Internet, the Aurora shooting is a very non-hypothetical example of that, and it’s about a white male who feels that the society he lives in wants him dead and gone, or best-case-scenario just plain doesn’t care about him. Him frequently running into static from POCs doesn’t help with that.

However, this is where the major Scorsese influence comes into play. Among the man’s many, many talents as a filmmaker, one of his greatest is how effectively he is able to capture toxic men in their element, showing just enough understanding of their condition to induce some empathy… but not to the point where it excuses their actions. Travis Bickle was a traumatised Vietnam War vet, but that didn’t make his plans to assassinate a senator any more reasonable. Jake LaMotta was a Spartan warrior boxer in the same vein as Rocky, but that doesn’t make his wife-beating excusable. And Rupert Pupkin, for as frustrating as his lack of success may be, the lengths he went to to change that didn’t exactly make me cheer for the guy.

Regardless, that same approach of sympathetic but honest framing is echoed by Phillips’ direction here. For as much as we see of the man who would become the Joker, his background, his familial history, his experience in the mental health system and the general tragedy of his life, the film doesn’t make excuses for what he does. He isn’t presented as a hero, just someone who got swept up into a storm of chaos he created by accident (sounds like the Joker to me). He isn’t even presented as an anti-hero, despite how the film tries to incorporate Antifa imagery in its depiction of pre-Batman Gotham. He is the villain, and the fact that that is even a question is all down to how well-developed and realised he is as a character. As we all saw with Marvel’s Thanos over the last couple years, some see the line between ‘sympathetic villain’ and ‘anti-hero’ as being a lot thinner than it really is.

It’s murky and incredibly unsettling, and that’s what makes this film work so damn well. It basically pulls the same trick as A Clockwork Orange but in reverse: It presents someone who, for numerous contributing reasons, is an outcast that you could feel sorry for, and then actively makes you question whether you should. It’s not cut-and-dry, and where some might see that as passive endorsement of the Joker’s actions, all I got out of it was something that appealed to my love for psycho-thrillers. I felt bad for Arthur Fleck, sure, but that only makes his transition into becoming the Joker that much more tragic. Rather than seeing this as a trigger for those susceptible to imitation (while ignoring that people who tend to take that kind of inspiration from films like this were likely to do so regardless), maybe this should be seen as a wake-up call to deal with the mental health involved at its source.

As a character study, it sails on Joaquin’s mesmerising performance from credit to credit. As a comic book film, it feels accurate to the Joker’s character and its depiction of Gotham City (possibly save for the inclusion of Thomas Wayne, which nearly takes the film in an even weirder direction) only makes the necessity of someone like Batman that much more apparent. And as a film all on its own, it makes for some of the tensest, most uncomfortable viewing I’ve had all year. And I absolutely love it for that.