(Warning: This article will contain spoilers for the movie “Joker.” We recommend that you watch it before reading this article.)
I recently watched Joker and I have a lot of feelings about it. Do I think this is a good movie? Yes. Do I think you should watch it? If you have enjoyed movies like “Taxi Driver” or “The King of Comedy”, then yes, I think you will like “Joker.” Otherwise, I can’t guarantee that you’ll enjoy this movie. It’s gritty, dark, morbid, and has some incredibly disturbing and intense scenes that may be too much for some audiences to handle. But, if you really want to get a full impression of the film, all I can say is to go out and watch it.
Before we crack into the movie, I need to highlight the acting. Joaquin Phoenix’s acting in this movie is incredible. He really seems like a very sick man in the beginning of the film and you can see a steady transformation of him going from being Arthur Fleck to becoming the Clown Prince of Crime. He developed an incredible laugh for the Joker, which can surprisingly display a variety of emotions. Phoenix perfectly captures that sensation of laughing while showing emotions like pain or sadness. Mark Hamill, who has voiced the Joker on several occasions and probably has the most iconic Joker voice, has said that the Joker’s laugh should be like a musical instrument and should have different emotions. However, Hamill was only talking about emotions or feelings that work with a maniacally evil laugh. Phoenix takes this idea and broadens it to make it work with almost any feelings, from sadness and nervousness to happiness and fulfillment. I rate it 10/10 clown emojis.
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Because this movie is already controversial due to the belief that some people may take inspiration or empowerment from the character, let me just say this in the beginning: the character of the Joker is not a good person. No matter how sympathetic his backstory may be, he is one of the most evil and disturbed characters in comic books and fiction as a whole. The movie respects that characterization of the Joker. I say this because I don’t want people to get the wrong message from this review. Just because I enjoyed the movie does not mean I myself sympathize with the Joker in any way. With that out of the way, let’s begin. (Skip to the end if you just want my final thoughts)
“Joker” follows Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix, through some very bad days as he goes through a bit of an identity crisis and spirals into severe mental illness. The film highlights his several ups and downs and how he inadvertently became the center of a movement in Gotham City.
The film begins by introducing Arthur, a struggling stand up comedian who has taken to clowning as a way to pay the bills. He lives with his mother in a rundown apartment, routinely visits a social worker, and idolizes his favorite talk show host as a way to cope with his life. Arthur’s therapy appointments don’t seem to help with his severe depression and he quickly realizes that Gotham’s public health system doesn’t care about people like him once the city cuts Social Works from the budget. Arthur’s mental health is one of the main focuses of the film; in addition to chronic depression, he also has Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA), a rare disorder that can cause uncontrollable laughter when triggered by other emotional disturbances like anger, frustration, or fear. This leads to some embarrassing moments for Arthur, who starts laughing at inappropriate times, leaving him to choke on his laughter and sheepishly give bystanders a worn laminated card explaining his disorder. Living down the hall of his apartment is a single mother named Sophie Dumond (played by Zazie Beetz). Arthur begins to develop a crush on Sophie and eventually the two start going out. Meanwhile, one of his clowning gigs goes wrong and he’s abused by a gang of teenage boys. A fellow clown gives him a gun to defend himself while working, but after some more poor performances, one of which involves him accidentally exposing his gun at a children’s hospital, Arthur gets fired from his only stable job.
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Okay, I’m going to say this one more time. If you haven’t watched the movie and you’ve read this far, stop reading. This article will still be available after you watch it. I literally had to force my editor (shoutout to Summer) to watch this movie because I didn’t want her having to edit my article to spoil it for her. From this point forward, this is where “Joker” goes from your classic movie drama to a full on psychological thriller with several twists and turns that are worth experiencing in the theater.
Alright, have you seen it? Yes? If you haven’t, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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After Arthur is fired, he takes the subway back to his apartment, still wearing his clown outfit. Along for the ride are three young, wealthy men who seem a little tipsy, so… basically Comm School. Arthur, from the shock of losing his main source of income, starts laughing uncontrollably, while tears run down his face. The trio of young men start harassing him and begin to beat him up. Eventually, Arthur is on the ground getting kicked when suddenly one of the men is shot in the head. Arthur managed to pull out his gun. Once the first man was down, Arthur proceeds to shoot the next one, who tries to disarm him but ultimately fails. The third guy runs away, but Arthur is not in the mood for mercy. When the train stops, the man tries to make a getaway, only to be shot as he runs towards the subway stairs. He’s crawling to escape when Arthur fatally shoots him in the back. Immediately realizing what he has done, Arthur runs away and hides in a public bathroom. In order to regain his center, he does a delicate dance routine. (Fun fact: this dance scene was fully improvised by Joaquin Phoenix.)
The shooting spree shocks the city. Eyewitness reports claim a man dressed as a clown killed the three men. While the audience never learns their names, we find out all three of them worked for the billionaire Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), father of our favorite cape crusader Bruce Wayne. Wayne, angered by the killings, states on live TV that such a murderer could only come from an unfortunate cowardly clown. This obviously doesn’t get the intended reception from Gotham’s poorer community, which seems to be the majority of the city. In fact, it’s so poorly received that the lower class begins to embrace the clown moniker; the clown movement is the French Revolution, and the killing of the rich begins.
Arthur longs to escape the chaos he created and tries to pursue his stand-up career. During his first show, however, his laughing condition gets in the way due to his nerves. Arthur’s favorite talk show host, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), manages to find a recording of his act and proceeds to mock him profusely on his show as part of his cold open. This stabs Arthur in the heart; his idol crushed his dreams of being a comedian. It doesn’t get better… but it does get worse.
From here, Arthur eventually starts to discover his past. His whole life, he never knew his father. One night, he reads an unsent letter of his mother’s, which leads him to believe that he is the son of Thomas Wayne. Arthur’s mother once worked for the Wayne Estate and claims she and Thomas were in love. Then, after Arthur confronts him in a bathroom, Thomas Wayne tells Arthur that he is in fact not his father, but also that Arthur is adopted and that his mother is mentally ill and delusional. Obviously, this upsets Arthur. Eventually, after a visit to Arkham Hospital, he finds out his mother did indeed adopt him and had Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as well as cases of psychosis and hallucinations. She also allowed one of her boyfriends to repeatedly abuse Arthur, presumably causing the head injury that gave him PBA. In a moment of breakdown, Arthur visits Sophie’s apartment. But when Sophie sees him, we find out Arthur hallucinated his whole relationship with her. At this point, Arthur has nothing left to live for, leading him to suffocate his mother; his transformation toward being the Joker is almost complete. This is a powerful moment. Before this point, every time that Arthur laughed due to his condition, it wasn’t out of happiness. Now, after “reclaiming” (read: losing) his identity, he laughs because he feels good about himself (read: is severely mentally ill).
The next day, Arthur receives a call from Murray’s office. His clip was a huge success and Murray invites him to be a guest on the show. Arthur accepts and decides his appearance on the Murray Franklin Show will be his last. He plans on how he is going to kill himself on live TV, going through all the motions from the moment he walks on stage to the second he pulls the trigger. Arguably, at this moment, his transformation to the Joker is complete. He decides to go on the show dressed as a clown. Surprisingly, Murray agrees to it, hoping that Joker dressed as the clowns that are rioting in the streets will bring some kind of laughter to the audience. Obviously, this isn’t at all what happens. Joker admits to the crowd that he killed the three young men and accuses Murray and Thomas Wayne for being equally evil for their attitude towards the less fortunate. After a small monologue, Joker shoots Murray on live TV. There are some great shots showing the action from the perspective of a TV spectator – these are probably my personal favorite shots of the movie. While at other times it’s hard to see where Arthur Fleck ends and the Joker begins, in these TV shots, all you can see is the Joker. Promptly afterward, he is arrested and in the final scene, we see him running around a psych ward.
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So, you made it through Joker. In my opinion, this movie does not support the things that many people claimed it did, like the Incel movement. Arthur Fleck doesn’t have any sexual frustrations with women in general, and e doesn’t express anger towards Sophie for not liking him. I also believe that this movie does not make you empathize with the Joker, at least if you watch it all the way through. In the beginning, when Arthur Fleck still had some semblance of sanity, it is very easy to see parts of ourselves in his character. That empathy immediately goes away once he becomes Joker. This is, after all, the Joker we are talking about; this is the villain who paralyzed Batgirl, murdered Robin, and manipulated Harley Quinn into an abusive relationship. This movie isn’t supposed to make you feel good about the protagonist because the protagonist is the most infamous supervillain in all of comic book history.
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But in all honesty, I feel like I cannot give you a thorough review of this movie. Why?
Because This Movie Is Ambiguous
Many comic book fans of the Joker, myself included, were mainly worried about one thing: how is the film going to construct a successful origin story for the Joker? It might not seem like such a big deal, but out of all the villains Batman repeatedly clashes with, the Joker is always the one who is never given a definitive background. There have been many attempts by the Cape Crusader to solve his mystery but he never succeeded. It is also implied that the Joker himself doesn’t know his own origin. As it is stated in Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel The Killing Joke: “Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.”
While the writers of “Joker” said that they did not look to the comics for inspiration, the one thing they did take from the comics is that the Joker does not have a definitive origin story. Remember when it is revealed that Arthur and Sophie never had a relationship and Arthur was hallucinating the whole thing? This means Arthur could have been hallucinating all of the movie, most of the movie, parts of the movie, or even none at all. Unless someone with an outsider’s perspective can shine a light on what happened, we don’t really have a definitive answer. This means that we also don’t have a definitive answer on what the story’s message is, or if there is any to begin with. For all we know, Arthur may have never left the hospital and came up with this whole scenario in his head. If you really want an answer on what to make of “Joker” and what it all means, all I can say is to just go watch the movie.
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