Joker

Rating

Director

Todd Phillips

Screenplay

Todd Phillips, Scott Silver

Length

2h 02m

Starring

Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais

MPAA Rating

R

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Review

As often as we’ve seen how Batman’s parents died, we’ve seen just as many incarnations of the Joker character. In the simply titled Joker, we get yet another version and this one is probably the most toxic of them all and not in a satisfying way.

There’s a lot of drama in playing the character of Joker. He’s the arch-nemesis of Batman and is a certifiable psychopath. In his various incarnations, he’s always been played with a manic flair, but the evolution of the character has been an increasingly bleak prospect. Cesar Romero was the least psychotic of the incarnations in the 1960s television series. Jack Nicholson took him to a bit more crazy lengths in 1989’s Batman, but he was still a relatively comical villain. Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight was about as unhinged as one can get while still being a cold-blooded, calculating lunatic. Then there’s Joaquin Phoenix here in Joker.

For their re-invention of the character, director and co-writer Todd Phillips, along with writing partner Scott Silver, have made him an unlikeable person who suffers from psychological impairment for reasons eventually explained near the film’s conclusion. Rather than being a criminal mastermind like he is in the comics, Phillips and Silver try to make him an empathetic figure, a mentally unbalanced man beaten and mistreated for so long than he lashes out with violence. It’s an interesting attempt to explain his psychoses, but it’s done in such a predictable way, the audience is left to wonder why they should actually feel bad for him, which they shouldn’t. The film makes the case for him being a semi-sympathetic figure, but in reality, his actions are little more than inappropriate responses to admittedly terrible incidents that pushed him over the edge.

Phoenix plays up these elements quite well and it’s a transformational performance, but compared to Ledger and Nicholson in the roles, his feels like an utterly inferior version of the character. This is a very difficult film to review. It isn’t that the film is bad. It is generally well made. The problem is that the first hour is a slog, an unrelentingly bleak slog. Joker isn’t simply the byproduct of bad situations as the film suggests. Rather, he’s given over to allowing his darker instincts to thrive. He’s a villain who’s created by an unjust system, but he’s also a character who takes the path of least resistance, refuses to repent for his actions, and ultimately the audience is told that they must feel some measure of pity for him and support his attempts to lash out at those around him. All the film really does is make the case for him to have his meds adjusted. He’s not a reformer and shouldn’t be an inspiration.

It’s a fine line that Joker tries to walk between justifying the character’s abhorrent acts and celebrating them when we should not be asked to identify with him. We should not be trying to find reasons to understand him. Strength of character is about not giving into your baser instincts and hurting others even when you’ve been harmed. His isn’t a figure to idolize even though there will be some who will. Be very concerned about anyone who would.

Review Written

October 31, 2022