Joker is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver. The film, based on DC Comics characters, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. An origin story set in 1981, the film follows Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comedian who turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City. Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham, and Marc Maron appear in supporting roles. Joker was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, and Joint Effort in association with Bron Creative and Village Roadshow Pictures, and distributed by Warner Bros.
Phillips conceived Joker in 2016 and wrote the script with Silver throughout 2017. The two were inspired by 1970s character studies and the films of Martin Scorsese, who was initially attached to the project as a producer. The graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) was the basis for the premise, but Phillips and Silver otherwise did not look to specific comics for inspiration. Phoenix became attached in February 2018 and was cast that July, while the majority of the cast signed on by August. Principal photography took place in New York City, Jersey City, and Newark, from September to December 2018. Joker is the first live-action theatrical Batman film to receive an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, due to its violent and disturbing content.
Cast
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| No lie I busted out laughing when I realized that was Sam from GLOW (Marc Maron) in this. |
Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck / Joker
Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin
Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond
Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck Hannah Gross portrays a young Penny.
Additionally, Brett Cullen plays Thomas Wayne, a billionaire philanthropist running for mayor of Gotham. Unlike in the comics, Thomas plays a role in the Joker's origins and is less sympathetic than traditional incarnations. Alec Baldwin was initially cast in the role but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Douglas Hodge plays Alfred Pennyworth, the butler and caretaker of the Wayne family, and Dante Pereira-Olson plays Bruce Wayne, Thomas's son, who becomes the Joker's archenemy Batman as an adult.
Additional cast members include: Glenn Fleshler and Leigh Gill as Randall and Gary, Arthur's clown co-workers; Bill Camp and Shea Whigham as two detectives in the Gotham City Police Department; Marc Maron as Gene Ufland, a producer on Franklin's show; Josh Pais as Hoyt Vaughn, Arthur's agent; Brian Tyree Henry as a clerk at Arkham State Hospital; Ben Warheit as a Wall Street banker who gets murdered by Arthur on a subway platform; Gary Gulman as a comedian who performs his act at the restaurant before Arthur does; and Bryan Callen as Javier, a co-worker of Arthur. Justin Theroux has an uncredited cameo as a celebrity guest on Franklin's show.
Plot
*** SPOILERS ***
In 1981, party clown and aspiring stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck lives with his mother, Penny, in Gotham City. Gotham is rife with crime and unemployment, leaving segments of the population disenfranchised and impoverished. Arthur suffers from a disorder that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times, and depends on social services for medication. After a gang attacks him in an alley, Arthur's co-worker, Randall, gives him a gun. Arthur invites his neighbor, single mother Sophie, to his stand-up comedy show, and they begin dating.
While entertaining at a children's hospital, Arthur's gun falls out of his pocket. Randall lies that Arthur bought the gun himself and Arthur is fired. On the subway, still in his clown makeup, Arthur is beaten by three drunken Wayne Enterprises businessmen; he shoots two in self-defense and executes the third. The murders are condemned by billionaire mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne, who labels those envious of more successful people as "clowns". Demonstrations against Gotham's rich begin, with protesters donning clown masks in Arthur's image. Funding cuts shutter the social service program, leaving Arthur without medication.
Arthur's comedy show goes poorly; he laughs uncontrollably and has difficulty delivering his jokes. Talk show host Murray Franklin mocks Arthur by showing clips from the routine on his show. Arthur intercepts a letter written by Penny to Thomas, alleging that he is Thomas's illegitimate son, and berates his mother for hiding the truth. At Wayne Manor, Arthur talks to Thomas's young son, Bruce, but flees after a scuffle with butler Alfred Pennyworth. Following a visit from two Gotham City Police Department detectives investigating Arthur's involvement in the train murders, Penny suffers a stroke and is hospitalized.
At a public event, Arthur confronts Thomas, who tells him that Penny is delusional and not his biological mother. In denial, Arthur visits Arkham State Hospital and steals Penny's case file; the file says Penny adopted Arthur as a baby and allowed her abusive boyfriend to harm them both. Penny alleged that Thomas used his influence to fabricate the adoption and commit her to the asylum to hide their affair. Distraught, Arthur goes to the hospital and kills Penny. He returns home and enters Sophie's apartment unannounced. Frightened, Sophie tells him to leave; their previous encounters were Arthur's delusions.
Arthur is invited to appear on Murray's show due to the unexpected popularity of his comedy routine's clips. As he prepares, Arthur is visited by Randall and fellow ex-colleague Gary. Arthur murders Randall but leaves Gary unharmed for treating him well in the past. En route to the studio, Arthur is pursued by the two detectives onto a train filled with clown protesters. One detective accidentally shoots a protester and incites a riot, allowing Arthur to escape.
Before the show goes live, Arthur requests that Murray introduce him as Joker, a reference to Murray's previous mockery. Arthur walks out to applause, but tells morbid jokes, admits he killed the men on the train, and rants about how society abandons the disenfranchised. Arthur shoots Murray and is arrested as riots break out across Gotham. One robber corners the Wayne family in an alley and murders Thomas and his wife Martha, sparing Bruce. Rioters in an ambulance crash into the police car carrying Arthur and free him. He dances to the cheers of the crowd.
At Arkham, Arthur laughs to himself and tells his psychiatrist she would not understand the joke. He runs from orderlies, leaving a trail of bloodied footprints.
The Verdict:
Let's get this out of the way right now. If you're going into this hoping for some hint or clever nod to connect the dots between this film and the existing DC Extended Universe's films to date, then you're going to be disappointed. This film is to be taken as it's own entity, separate from what we have seen in DC Comics' live-action endeavors to date. I thought that was a very wise decision as it gives this film some liberties that would not have been able to do otherwise.I honestly went into this film thinking it was a super villain origin story looking to make an iconic villain into a hero - much like Venom did (or rather attempted to do) for Sony around this time year. I was surprised to find that this film is more of a conversation on mental health and psychosis than it is the origins for both Joker and Batman. Bruce Wayne, along with Thomas and Martha Wayne, are in this film but this isn't a Batman origin story in the least. We get to see how Bruce's parents die in the film's closing moments but this film isn't setting up this Joker and Batman to cross paths in any shape or form. In a bizarre, yet crazy way, I found this ending to have a clever nod to the recent comics' mythos where it was revealed that there wasn't just one definitive Joker but three active in DC Comics' history. If DC Comics wanted to, they could follow this film up with the revelation that Joaquin Phoenix's Joker inspired a wealth of "imitators" with Jared Leto's Joker among these "imposers", allowing Phoenix to reprise the role if wanted by actually making it canon to their cinematic universe. As it stands, I'm completely fine with this film being it's own stand-alone feature.
I think this film is going to be highly regarded as the superhero genre's equivalent of Momento and Fight Club where filmgoers are going to revisit the film again and again to see what they missed the first time around in terms of analyzing Arthur's loss of sanity over the course of the film. The film opens with him seeing his social worker for his prescription of medicine that he depends on, but over the course of the film he's unable to refill on this medication and slowly becomes unhinged by the ongoing stresses in his life along with the unfavorable social reception of his disorder that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times.
I'm not going to paint the picture of Joker being "heroic" in this film, but this film does a damn good job of making you sympathize with the guy to an extent. That doesn't justify the negativity surrounding the film around the time of its release with theaters in fear of possible gun violence and forced to bring in additional security as a result. It's a fucking movie, people. Stop glamorizing a damn serial killer and psychopath. It's bad enough that people glamorize the comic book and animated portrayals of Harley Quinn and The Joker's relationship to disturbing degrees, let's not go that route here. One would think that would be the message to be gained from this film by the time the credits rolled but I guess that was lost on a few people...
Sorry, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. Back on the topic of Arthur's degrading sanity. It's not helped that he's being fed disillusions from his delusional mother, Penny, who is oddly optimistic that Thomas Wayne is going to answer one of her many letters and save them from their state of poverty. Penny's letters contribute to Arthur's stress and inner turmoil too when he reads one before sending it in the mail and finds out that he's Thomas Wayne's illegitimate son from an affair that was covered up between Penny and himself. I know what you're thinking - that would make Bruce Wayne and Arthur Fleck half-brothers in this continuity, but let's not jump the shark on that. I was caught a little off-guard by this revelation, but when it was revealed later on that Penny suffers from her own bouts of psychosis. Arthur was actually adopted by Penny as a baby and allowed her abusive boyfriend to abuse her and the infant. The whole "affair" with Thomas Wayne was all in her head as a big delusion, but by the time that Arthur found out the truth, he had already confronted Thomas about the alleged "affair" with Penny, only to make a fool out of himself.
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| Every time I see these early depictions of Thomas Wayne of being a bad-ass I always picture this and go, "Why the fuck he didn't do this in that alleyway that fateful night?" |
This is a story about one man's pain and daily struggle to just be accepted as who and what he is by not himself but by society as a whole. Instead of reaching some mortal high ground or acceptance from his friends and peers, Arthur is frowned upon and ridiculed by society at every opportunity, even when he constantly tries to do the right thing.
Arthur gets beaten up by a group of teenagers who stole his sign while working a gig outside a store as a clown to (hopefully) bring in more customers only to get the same sign smashed over his face before beating him handily.
He found himself at the wrong end of a beating on his train ride home from work where he opted to step in between three Gotham socialites harassing a young woman who were offended by his inappropriate laughing at the situation. Arthur shot them dead in self-defense, but once again, Gotham City's society had the last laugh, turning the situation into a tragedy for three scum-balls who got what they deserved. Much like the two examples cited above, Arthur's life doesn't give him any breaks. Arthur's life seems to slight him at every possible opportunity to turn the positives of his life into a negative. Simply put, he just can't catch a break.
I think a lot of people went into this film thinking that Zazie Beetz' Sophie was going to be the precursor to Harley Quinn in the traditional Joker narratives but she wasn't. The writers geared this story in a manner that made one think that she was his love interest when she wasn't at all. It was all part of the delusions manufactured in his mind due to his deteriorating psyche from his lack of medication. In a lot of ways that it's very sad when this revelation comes to fruition as Sophie is only person who is there to support him in his efforts as a struggling amateur comedian and even there as a shoulder to cry on when his "mother" Penny is hospitalized. When the truth comes out about Penny's delusions and the truth about his own background, it shatters the glass in this happy, content world that Arthur has made for himself as a coping mechanism. His relationship with Sophie isn't real at all and just another manufactured illusion by his deteriorating psyche. It's not as extreme as the dissociated personality disorder that the main character in Fight Club deals with, but disturbing nonetheless.
When you realize that nothing "good" in this man's life is real, it's hard not to empathize with him and in a sense, I hate that as a viewer - even more so knowing this character's comic book history. At the same time, I understand that this is it's own continuity and the director wants you to feel this way - conflicted. Society has turned it's back on a person who wanted nothing but to be accepted for who he is and wanted to put smiles on people's faces. Instead, Arthur Fleck finds himself beaten senseless - figuratively and physically - by society constantly casting him aside for not conforming to their accepted social norms. It's only natural that one will reach their breaking point - that point of no return where you stop turning the other cheek once you have had enough of everyone's bullshit around you and fight back. Not everyone is going to eat shit and like it as how the saying goes. Arthur reached that point during Murray Franklin's television show when he shot him dead in cold blood. Arthur was sick of being the butt end of the joke that his life was taking him down and refused to be that punchline (figuratively and literally in that sense) and made one of his own, shooting Murray on live television. In sick twisted way, Arthur's actions end up inspiring a cult-like following. Much like Arthur Fleck, the people of Gotham are fed up with the high and mighty sitting on their high horses of authority on the top of the social hierarchy in Gotham City and set off a riot within the streets.
After everything he went through over the course of this film, I honestly can't blame him for laughing.
"Oh what the heck... I'll laugh anyway..." - The Joker, Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker
Does it deserve the praise and critical acclaim?
Joaquin Phoenix left his own unique mark on this character that I'm sure film-goers will be comparing to those that proceeded him (Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger, etc.) in film and animation for years to come. He definitely put on a much more memorable performance than Jared Leto did a few years ago and washed the bad taste of that out of our mouths. JOKER stands to be a film that is revoluntary of it's kind within the superhero/comic book adaptation/homage genre, but I think people are getting a little of themselves to say that it's one of the greatest films of all time.
My only regret is that we won't be able to see this iteration of The Joker in the DC Extended Universe, but I wonder if Joaquin Phoenix wouldn't be opposed to playing a different iteration of him in the future?
Watch It or Don't Bother?
Watch It. This is more of a character analysis film than a superhero narrative or something that would be regarded as something connected to a bigger universe. I feel that if it were, it would have fallen down the same slippery slope that Sony Pictures' Venom fell into last year, despite it's omissions and lack of connections/references to Spider-Man. This film acknowledges that this is a "Batman" story, existing in that same universe, BUT doesn't go out of it's way to connect it to the existing DC Extended Universe. That decision gave this film a lot of creative freedom. Otherwise, I doubt that this film would have came off as powerful as it did as a look into social conformity, psychological disorders, and the importance of mental health. While I did enjoy this film, I don't like that it's does nothing to suggest those who glamorize The Joker's behavior and characterization as an anti-hero instead of the psychotic criminal that he is. He isn't a rebel without a clause, leading a movement for social justice and equality as if this film seems to suggest by the time the credits roll. This is a man unhinged by the maligned society that created him, furthering the notion that we are all byproducts of the environment that we are raised in. From all of the iterations of Gotham City that I have seen from cartoons and films growing up as far back to when I was a child, I have come to the realization that Gotham City is an absolutely rotten place to live. I'll never understand why people continue to live there from how fucked up the city is from lower class to the high class - this was even before Batman and his Rogues' Gallery came into the equation. JOKER just serves to hammer that point home even harder.
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