JOKER Review

I work in manufacturing. Every week is a challenge and some days it can feel like everything is going wrong all at once. A lot of times problem-solving doesn’t happen so easily. Issues can have a multitude of variables and have multiple ways of existing. It could be that a process wasn’t designed well but got rushed into production. And then the operators weren’t trained well on the process and were incorrectly executing on a bad process. The problem could also be exacerbated by the fact that the materials the operators used never went through adequate quality control and get impacted by the bad process that is being used.  It can take days to weeks or months to identify the problem and then another few more months to confirm that your solution will work. Other times it just takes time to figure out where to start.

On those days that spiral out of control I tend to have mini meltdowns and panic attacks. It's because the situation can feel oppressive and having them happen over and over again can just be downright depressing.

But I’m sure a lot of people have those days. Joker’s Arthur Fleck has been having these days for years. And honestly, one thing that I could relate to the movie was just how easily anyone could crack under constant pressure. We all believe that we’re people strong enough to handle these situations, but what most of us do have are places, people, or moments of respite. When work is over, I can usually go home and not think about it until tomorrow. I can enjoy time with friends on the weekend or spend time with my family. But there are people who have nowhere to go and have no way to get out of the hole they’ve been placed into. And that is how Arthur’s story starts.

I haven’t had an exorbitant amount of time to really sit down and write a full review, so I decided to write down three things I loved about Joker. They are in no particular order. Go watch the movie and think about it for yourself. One thing I can say about this movie is that it will stick with you after it’s over.

Worth Noting: I have not watched Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy or Taxi Driver. I plan to but I have heard that watching those movies could put a damper on the impact/story of the movie.

Best Three Things about Joker

Story

I’m going to have to say that the story was thin in terms of plot points. For most of the movie, Arthur Fleck is mainly going about his terrible life and failing at being a stand-up comedian. While it seems a lot of people thought the beginning of the movie beat the audiences over the head with scene after scene of Arthur basically failing at life, I really enjoyed those scenes. I liked how suffocating Arthur’s situation felt. Every aspect of his life seemed to be broken. He lives with his mom, his mom has some sort of mental illness, he seems to be suffering from condition, he has a terrible low paying job, his therapist doesn’t seem be helping, and he seems to be magnet for troublemakers. There is no respite for Arthur and the extended look into his life early on really helps make his insanity later in the movie more believable.

I’d like to touch on one thing that I indirectly enjoyed from the film’s story telling. Not a lot of movies focus on making a city a character in movies. But Joker really makes Gotham and its citizens feel like the antagonist of the movie. Gotham has always been a cesspool of crime with little to no hope except for the Batman (who doesn't yet exist in this movie). While The Dark Knight did a great job of showing Gotham as a setting for Batman, it didn’t show how it really affected. In The Dark Knight, Gotham was an agent that moved the plot forward along with characters like the Joker. But in Joker, Gotham is almost like an antagonist. A character that opposes Arthur in almost every scene. The high-rise buildings to the trash all over the streets, to the people who live in it.

Is it just me or things getting crazier out there…

The latter half of the movie is a lot more interesting in terms moving the story forward. Arthur gets a shot on live television for his stand-up routine/interview. And well, without spoiling too much, things seem to escalate quickly. Just like the Arthur himself, the plot becomes a bit unhinged and sort of goes off the rails.

Characters

Two words: Thomas Wayne. I understand that Arthur Fleck is the star of the show since he is the main character, but what is the most surprising character out of this entire movie is Thomas Wayne. One thing we, as Batman fans, have beaten into our heads is how angelic Bruce’s parents are. It’s what Bruce uses every night as he prowls across Gotham fighting crime. It’s the main reason he gets back up again whenever he falls. An yet, we only know Bruce’s parents from his memory. And who doesn’t idolize their parents when they are 8 or 9 years old?

But in Joker, Thomas acts like a realistic billionaire. He puts on a face to the public eye, but he doesn’t really care about them. He doesn’t care about the poor and the downtrodden. He’s only looking out for himself and his image. I mean he technically owns the city (figuratively), so it would make sense he would make a run for mayor. I also thought that his involvement in this movies story was a nice twist.

Joaquin Phoenix, I don’t know man. A lot of people still think Heather Ledger as the better Joker performance, but Phoenix really gives Ledger a run for his money. The way Phoenix acts, his mannerisms in talking, the way he moves…it just makes you feel so uneasy. Phoenix being constantly uncomfortable in every scene makes it hard to feel sympathy for him. There’s a scene where he laughs at the wrong times at a stand-up and takes notes about what he thought was funny.  There other scenes where he doesn’t know how to sit comfortably. He stares always a bit too long at people. He just can’t control himself. He goes from cringey to psychotic and all of it feels like a very plausible story of a man who becomes one of Batman’s greatest villains.

One thing Bruce has all his orphan life is his butler, Alfred. The major backbone to his sanity to keep him from becoming like the people he fights against. Alfred is his father figure and safety blanket. I doubt there is any reader or fan of Batman who doesn’t believe this. Arthur’s main cohort is his delirious mother who has seemingly been lying to him all his life. Arthur has no one to turn to and no relief from city that has oppressed him for his entire life.

It’s Not A Super-Hero (Villain) Movie

This was refreshing. After watching blockbuster after blockbuster these past few years, I’m just glad to watch something that doesn’t have the same generic story beats of every other super hero movie released in the past decade. Joker is stripped down to the essentials with very little fluff. Maybe it’s because the movie is so character driven, but every scene tends to reveal more and more about Arthur - even the drawn-out beginning scenes felt necessary to the plot of the overall story.

There is a good amount of violence in this movie, but every death is important in character development. I understand that the violence in the movie is controversial because of how people think the movie’s theme promotes mass shootings or how people dealing with mental illness are likely to be a public threat, but I don’t think that is the movies point.

There is one shot in the movie (and in the trailer) that zooms in on Arthur’s notebook/journal where he keeps his daily thoughts for his therapist and his stand-up comedy material (another clever way of re-enforcing how he feels his life is a joke). One of the jokes he comes up with is: “The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you DON’T.” And it speaks to the common movie-goer. All the issues Arthur had that led him to be a villain are all interactions with people who didn’t understand him and didn’t know how to interact with him.

Conclusion

It’s weird to say you can relate to a psychopath. But we canall technically be psychopathic sometimes. And I think it’s fine to feel a bit of sympathy for Arthur. But I think it’s in between those moments that ask the audience for sympathy and insanity takes over is what makes this movie shine. There is a good amount of work that Phoenix does to show that we shouldn’t relate/feel bad for Arthur Fleck at the end of the film. It’s more like this movie was a word of caution. Be kind and gentle because all of us can and may contribute to an environment that enables people like Arthur to  exist.