Early on in Joker, hyperbolically put-upon, wannabe stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) attends a taping of late night talk show Live! with Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro, phoning it in as ever in the last decade). Franklin takes notice of Fleck in the audience and directly engages him with a spotlight before calling him onstage for a heartfelt paternal exchange during the show’s live broadcast. The tone of the scene is stilted, awkward, and surreal, with characters behaving curiously and reacting in not-quite human ways. Director Todd Phillips (School for Scoundrels) confirms this obvious fantasy sequence (and heavy-handed nod to The King of Comedy) by immediately cutting back to Fleck sullenly watching the program on television in his squalid apartment, but there’s otherwise very little differentiating the suspicious phoniness of this segment from the rest of the quite phony Joker.
That’s not to say that the film is bad, per se; it just has the same frustratingly loose grasp on reality as the latest iteration of the one-day Clown Prince of Crime at its center. This unreliable narrator bit has worked great before for other 1980s New York-set character studies of medicated, violently delusional guys menacing Wall Street. But American Psycho was a satire, and Joker is hellbent on being an Important Movie For Our Times. It’s pretty difficult to buy its themes about political corruption and socioeconomic inequality (Phillips seems to be chasing the same career trajectory of fellow comedy film director-turned-social commentator, Adam McKay) when everything seems removed from reality—like when its various brutal murders incur only cursory investigation from law enforcement, another illusory American Psycho trademark.
Still, the film is by far the most mature work from the director who introduced the world to Ken Jeong’s penis ten years ago. Joker is handsomely shot in a grimy, saturated style, keeping with its early 80s setting—necessary for the absence of security cameras and mobiles phones, wildly pervasive Scorcese references, and one hell of a good visual gag about a George Hamilton movie. The script, while entirely predictable (to see the trailer is to know Joker‘s story beats), is sobering in its lacking in jokes—dick, fart, or otherwise. In fact, it’s pretty light on dialogue altogether, especially when it comes to the worryingly committed performance (a Joker Oscar-worthy prerequisite, apparently) by Phoenix.
Prematurely polarizing as the film has been, one could never deign to accuse Joaquin Phoenix of not giving his absolute all in his portrayal of the clown-faced master criminal in the time leading up to first putting on that iconic purple suit. Every little detail of his Fleck has been painstakingly curated, giving the late Heath Ledger a run for his money in overselling a comic book jester.
Sure, this version of the Joker laugh as (alleged) compulsive fit (Phoenix practiced after studying the mentally ill) is eerie and almost kind of sad, but a lot of what makes this take on the character unique is his physical business. Phoenix famously dropped dozens of pounds for the role, imbuing his Joker with a troubling, haunting physicality, whether running from the police or creating a meme in dancing in slow motion in a column of cigarette smoke. He earns some expansive bruises from taking a few beatings, and occasionally retaliates in kind with a surprising, coiled-snake quality. And, of course, his histrionic Joker quietly sobs by himself as easily as he would command a laugh. Recklessly treading the line between Oscar gold and pure ham, Phoenix is a Joker that’s, if nothing else, undeniably interesting.
Award-worthy or not, Phoenix’s go-for-broke acting showcase as Joker can’t distract from Joker being ultimately hollow and unnecessary. It’s a decent depiction of a guy who’s had enough finally losing it, but it doesn’t really have anything more to add to its predecessors—from Taxi Driver, to Falling Down, to the Killing Joke graphic novel. Joker might operate fine as a fascinating portrait of a truly disturbed human, but it loses a lot of its oomph by locking itself into the larger Batman universe, doing itself and the DCEU a disservice in the process. It’s hard to take Joker seriously as a drama when a kid playing Bruce Wayne keeps needlessly popping up to remind that, hey, one day Joaquin Phoenix will probably fight that guy wearing a bat costume on the roof of a cathedral or whatever.
Joker is purported to act on its own, but it’s a clumsy splice of psychological thriller and vestigial Batman film. Joker never needed an origin story (films like Fight Club or Layer Cake didn’t even need names for their protagonists), but Phillips doesn’t give a shit. Even though his Joker is clearly beholden to the maniac anarchist in The Dark Knight, full-on with his stringy green hair and cult-like leadership, the entire film refutes the satisfyingly ambiguous nature of his origins. Like The Phantom Menace, Joker is mildly intriguing villain background information by way of some asshole in a painted face.
Grade: C+
Joker
Director: Todd Phillips
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime: 122 minutes
Rating: R
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Hannah Gross, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshier, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham, Marc Maron
