Thoughts On: Joker

“Fuck the system“

Joker will likely go down as a defining film for the decade. Culturally speaking, the film taps into the thoughts and feelings of the restless in society, restless meaning the oppressed, the poor, the artists, the free-thinkers, the broken, and the forgotten, that it acts as a rebellion film against the system. Now when you start discussing “society” and “the system” the first thing I think of is a teenager that spends most of his time on internet conspiracy forums and, after watching this movie, probably think they themselves are the Joker. These people should be laughed at and ignored. But I am aware of the presence of a “system” here in America. And this isn’t an article discussing what the system is, it’s a movie review, but these themes are heavily present in the film so I feel the need to distinguish myself from what many other white boys mean when discussing such topics. The system is really whatever you want it to be, such as big government, the rich, lies and deceit, predestination/fate, lizard people, etc. and society are all of us who are victims of the system.

We all know the underdog tale, the rags to riches tale, the nobody to somebody tale. Basically the plot of Rocky. Well Joker is the same familiar story, expect the protagonist is mentally ill and has a strong capacity for violence. I hesitate to use the word “villain” because Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix as we all know, is not an evil person, in my opinion. Arthur is mentally ill, was horrifically abused as a child, and is incapable of receiving the help he needs. His therapist says it best when she bluntly tells Arthur that the “people”, the keepers of the system, don’t give a rat’s ass about him. It’s true, both in the film and in real life. Therefore, the end result of the Joker is a product of society, of the inability for a mentally ill man to get the help he needs because he is too poor, too trapped, too forgotten to do anything about it except to embrace the darkness that he feels and carry out the events of the film. Keep in mind that this isn’t a situation specific to Arthur, as through his actions he ignites an entire revolution of oppressed people in the same predicament as him. This isn’t a movie about a supervillain, or a serial killer, or anything else that could be written off as “evil”. It’s a movie about the lower rung of society and how they are squashed in their place, incapable of receiving the help they need. Until perhaps the very end, the film feels strikingly real and quite plausible, which is terrifying. Arthur’s problems and society’s problems are mirrored with our own in such sour realism, and I applaud the film for doing so. I don’t think the film is saying we should all grab guns and start killing people, I think the film is showing us what has and what will happen when you crush so many people with the system. It’s not just a message aimed at society’s elite, it’s a call for all of us to treat each other with more compassion and understanding.

The hype surrounding Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is justified. This role has so many potholes for the actor to fall into and Phoenix avoids all of them. He’s even able to handle some absolute landmines in the script such as “I thought my life was a tragedy, but not a realize it’s a comedy” or “I’ve never been happy for a minute of my life” with a level of grace. He does a great job of making smart, bold decisions, of incrementally changing during the character’s arc, and creating a character that we can empathize with. I mean, I felt so bad for Arthur, especially during the scenes where he can’t stop laughing due to his condition. The agony in his face as he’s smiling with laughter, his sharp, writhing body language, and that awful choking noise as he tries to force himself to stop is horrible to watch, but also damn fine acting. Phoenix’s performance is accompanied with a good script (minus a few edge lord comments), smart cinematography, and some wonderful music, something I rarely notice in films. The tone is appropriately dark, but rarely becomes redundant. In fact, the plot itself continuously surprised me. Every time I was confident I knew what was about to happen, or that I had figured the film out, the film took a left turn instead of a right. The end result is obvious, by Arthur’s journey there isn’t what I thought it was going to be. All the elements harmoniously chime together in the screeching ring of a great thriller.

Joker feels nothing like a comic book movie, even less so than Logan. I forgot I was watching a film that is technically the origin story for a supervillain, let alone a DC supervillain. All the recent DC films suck. Granted they were apart of the DC Cinematic Universe, the malnourished spawn of Marvel’s distant cousin, but after such a horrific handling of the DC property in cinema I was wondering if anything DC would be worthwhile. This film appropriately has zero ties to any of that shit, but it does set up the whole Batman thing. I warn the filmmakers from thinking they should reboot Batman and have this Joker be the villain in it. That will undercut so much of the realism this film offers, as well as its core philosophy. Having the young billionaire kid grow up as a hero to get his revenge on the villain Joker for the murder of his parents has no place here, and honestly I wish it wasn’t even alluded to in the film.

Throughout it’s runtime, Joker is thoughtful, entertaining, disturbing, and consistent. It captures the struggle of millions of Americans everyday in it’s grounded portrayal of a mentally ill man with no other options. Every element of the film ranges from being good to being superb, and for this reason, the prevalence of the film in the media, in controversy, and in our culture right now is of no shock to me.