“Joker” should be taken on its own terms
Todd Phillips’ origin story for Batman’s nemesis needs to be seen before it can be judged
6 6 ¼ 5 Rated R. 122 minutes.
“Joker” deserves to be viewed on its own terms, as tough as that will be for many people.
Can you blame them? The FBI, U. S. military and exhibitors have placed themselves on alert for violence at screenings of the DC film, a gritty origin story that reimagines Batman’s evil- clown nemesis. Families of Aurora theater-shooting victims have asked Warner Bros. to support gun control in conjunction with the film’s release, given the thematic link to the 2012 mass shooting at a “Dark Knight Rises” screening that left 12 people dead and 70 injured.
And social media warriors, both left and right, have breathlessly attacked and defended “Joker” as an example of everything that’s wrong ( or right) with Hollywood, despite most of them not having seen it.
“Joker” has little to say about any of that. It’s more concerned with mental illness, the failures of capitalism and its own grandiosity. Its earth- toned palette, deft pacing and acrobatic lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix are less about setting up future franchises than riveting you in the moment.
But director Todd Phillips has not done “Joker” many favors recently by spitting on “woke” culture and the supposed chilling effect “the far left” has had on comedy. The truth is that “Joker” leans more progressive than it does conservative, even if the targets of its harsh commentary are only occasionally clear enough to recognize.
Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill, middle- aged man who lives with his mother in a ratty slum and works as a signtwirler for a clown temp agency. Fleck dreams of becoming a stand- up comic, but his workaday existence is anything but funny. Here, inside the most convincing re- creation of early ’ 80s New York we’ve seen in decades, Arthur suffers a series of violent indignities. Street kids steal from him and brutally attack him in an alley. His boss and coworkers mock him while his mother ( with whom he lives), neighbors and even his social worker dismiss or ignore him.
It’s a nightmare scenario of nature and nurture gone awry simultaneously, firmly rooted in the social, cultural and political decay of late ’ 70s and early ’ 80s urban America. The film flaunts its signifiers, from omnipresent imagery of a garbage strike and hastily scrawled graffiti to relentless stylistic nods to the era’s most bracing satires and dramas (“Taxi Driver,” “Network,” “The King of Comedy”). “Joker” frames Phoenix’s effortful performance with painterly ease, and the languid, foreboding score neatly synthesizes the past few decades of prestige drama moodiness — Bernard Hermann by way of Hans Zimmer.
Despite the homages, this is an origin story we’ve never seen.
Yes, there’s precedent for cutting off a character from the larger comics- universe and indulging in hyper- stylization ( see 1989’ s brilliant “Gotham by Gaslight” comic), and “Joker” is very much in that vein.
But there’s none of the lowbrow dude- humor from director Phillips’ other films, whether that’s “Old School” or “The Hangover” movies. Fleck is regarded with fear and revulsion by most around him, and Phoenix’s intentionally ugly turn dares us to feel similarly.
Hunched, skeletal and chainsmoking, Fleck laughs uncontrollably at inappropriate times ( a neurological condition, he’s been told) and creeps people out wherever he goes. That includes the front gates of Wayne Manor, where Thomas ( father of Bruce, our eventual Batman) lives as a cozy billionaire with political ambitions. His arrogance seems to invoke Hillary Clinton, particularly the ripple effect of her “deplorables” comment, in one of the film’s most obvious jabs at the elite.
As noted, though, this isn’t exactly a conservative rally cry. “Joker” takes pains to show how unregulated guns end up in the hands of the wrong people, or how Wall Street bros, drunk boyfriends and white privilege combine to victimize women and children ( see the brutal Subway scene that activates the core plot). People of color are presented as targets of institutional greed and neglect, trapped in a system that’s perpetually against them. Fleck, in his male fragility, is the one committing murders — a victim transformed into an agent of chaos, with violence as his only way of asserting his identity.
Making exact, real- world connections to every character or theme does a disservice to the film while also giving it too much on- the- nose credit ( movies take a long time to make, after all). Murray Franklin, a “Tonight Show”- like host played by Robert De Niro, is neither Carson nor Letterman. Even Fleck’s co- workers are given some emotional depth beyond their accents and haircuts, particularly the short- statured Gary ( Leigh Gill).
But as thoughtful — and often gorgeous — as “Joker” is, it lacks the satirical, anti- hero clarity of a film like “American Psycho” ( or, for that matter, “A Clockwork Orange”). The grains of optimism and humor present in many on- screen social critiques are absent here. “Joker” has nothing good to say about anyone. It’s not, as many are ready to receive it, a handbook for the impotent rage men feel as their fingers are pried from the global levers of power. It’s more a violent portrait of treatment- resistance sadness and confusion that just as easily could have ended with Fleck’s suicide.
By the time the film reaches its convulsive, citywide climax, Phillips has done his best to show us how terrible things tend to beget more terrible things — but also how cool they can look when shot against sunsets and flickering lights. Perhaps the bleakest assertion of “Joker” is the one that’s hardest to disprove: That the ghastly world Fleck inhabits, and by extension ours, is the one we deserve.