Joker - The Good / The Bad

Joker - The Good / The Bad

  

In 1981, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is trying to keep a grip on things in his life, while struggling with his mental health issues, including uncontrollable laughter when his anxiety rises. With a passion for laughter, Arthur has found a calling to be a clown, but life in the city of Gotham is no laughing matter, with Arthur assaulted on the job, only to return home to care for his sickly mother, Penny (Frances Conroy). Despite being heavily medicated to control his mental state, Arthur holds onto a dream of being a stand-up comedian, hoping to appear on “The Murray Franklin Show”, finally getting a chance to meet the late-night talk show host, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), and wowing him with his performance skills. Unfortunately, his dream grows dark as Arthur, dealing poorly with the loss of his job, gets entangled into harassment on the subway, which results into something troublesome woes for the aspiring comedian. This event sparks a series of events for Arthur, facing a divide society, confront shocking revelations, and falls into madness as the young man gives into his violent inhibitions.

 

While I’ve stated that I’m more of a fan of Marvel than DC, I still appreciate and love some of the DC comic book characters and storylines, with perhaps the Batman lore and mythos to be one of the more interesting (almost fascinating) of the bunch. This, of course, plays up all the various different villains that Bruce Wayne / Batman have come across, especially the one considering of the character of the Joker. He’s definitely a great nemesis bad guy foil for Batman to fight against and has certainly been a fan-favorite amongst many of the Batman villains, including myself. Thus, as I mentioned above, there have been many portrayals / interpretations of the Joker in several various media adaptations. While I’ve seeing all of the performances of the ones in my opening paragraph, perhaps the one that had the most profound impact on me was in actor Mark Hamill in doing the voice of the character in Batman: The Animated Series (Hamill also reprised the role in several other projects as well). The dialogue, the delivery of the voice, and that iconic maniac laughter he did was all great, with Hamill sort of being my first introduction to the character. Plus, who could forget that famous line he said in the episode The Man Who Killed Batman; saying “Without Batman, crime has no punchline…”. That being said, I do have to agree that actor Heath Ledger delivered such a convincing and memorable portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight; one of which is widely considered to be the best iteration of Batman’s nemesis. I’m mean…. he played that part so well and was one of the best parts of the entire film; putting his own stamp on the character as well as one of the most memorable performance of his career. However, some out there might disagree with me, with Batman fans out there will continue to debate on which Joker portrayal is the best.

This brings me back to talking about the movie Joker, a 2019 motion picture which is set to tell of a origin tale of a new iteration of the iconic Batman villain. As mentioned, the character of the Joker has been played by many different people, so I was kind of a bit, more or less, interested in this film when it was first announced awhile back. I mean….do we really need an origin tale for a Batman villain? Does that mean that every Batman baddie is gonna get their own movie? An origin central focus of Poison Ivy? Killer Croc? Scarecrow? The list goes on. So, as you can tell, I wasn’t super ecstatic about the release of the movie, especially since this meant (around the corner) that there was gonna be another Batman movie sometime soon. However, I was very curious when it was announced that actor Joaquin Phoenix would be playing the title character. Phoenix, who is no stranger for being a bit of a “odd” artisan and is usually attracted to more “eccentric” and “off-beat” character roles / movies, so it can as no surprise when it was announced that he would be playing the role of the Joker in the film. The film’s movie trailer certainly promised the various eccentrics nuances that Phoenix is known for as he really gets into the character and I’m sure would definitely “the fit the bill”. Plus, I was definitely curious to see how the character of the Joker would ultimately play out in the movie and how Phoenix would “stack up” against the other iterations of the character as mentioned above. So, I went to see Joker a few weeks after its release, but I kept on pushing back my review of the movie as I sick (around that time) and got busy with work (holiday retail and all) as well as playing “catch up” with other reviews. Now, I finally have the time to give my personal “two cents” on Joker. And what did I think of it? Well, I really liked it. Despite a few areas that aren’t exactly smoothed over, Joker is a terrific origin focused tale of the title character, with Phoenix delivering a captivated performance in the lead role. It’s not the best DC superhero movie out there, but it surely is up there as one of the better / entertaining features.

  

Giving his “real world” appeal and nuances, Joker’s story is another poignant piece of making the film standing out above the rest. Phillips plays “double duty” on the film as both director and penning the feature’s script (alongside Scott Silver); shaping the written word to flesh out a realistic portrayal of the character of Arthur Fleck from broken mental illness individual to deranged psychopath. Part of this transformation (and its overall fascination) is the journey of getting to those points, with the film’s script showcasing mental illness in a particular individual, how people look upon / treat this individual, and the overall product unstableness within a person (sort of seeing it through society’s eyes). This, of course, makes the narrative of Joker much more palpable than any superhero film out there, with the character of Arthur Fleck descent into madness being more realized as person (in the real world) with mental instability and scarier realized when further examining the real-life acts of violence that are caused by these individuals. It’s kind of very scary thing to imagine that a person like Arthur Fleck in Joker could easily become someone (like him) in the real world. Thus, the film’s script has mirror reflection to the real-world of that aspect as well as society role of social class (i.e the rich vs. poor). Also, with the film rated R, Phillips does showcases the more grounded “real world” violence that definitely work in the film’s favor (in terms of storytelling). As a word of caution, the film is a bit violent of times, so those who a leery of scenes these acts might be warned before watching Joker.

  

In the presentation realm, Joker is a solid film that surely captures the real-world essence that both Phillips and the film’s story wants to be capture within this cinematic undertaking. Of course, the movie doesn’t need large scale blockbuster aesthetics and visual nuances, but rather goes for a more “grounded” realism; depicting the city of Gotham (the famous fictional DC comics city) has urban cityscape that has fallen on hard times as it’s a lot of citizens are struggling and the beautification of Gotham is nonexistence with piles of rubbish and bags of trash clinging to the streets and nearby buildings. Again, this is a somewhat different approach to the depiction of the city of Gotham and I think its visually speak well (again, its part of the film’s social commentary). Thus, the efforts made by Mark Friedberg (production designs), Kris Moran (set decorations), and Lawrence Sher (cinematography), are terrifically well-represented; making the overall “look and feel” of Joker realistic, believable, and gritty throughout. Plus, while the costume designs by Mark Bridges, look a bit “the norm” for a project like this, the outfit that Arthur Fleck wears when he’s in the full-blown “Joker” getup is terrific, with the entire make-up team for the work on Phoenix’s hair / make-up appeal during this scene. Lastly, while the movie’s score, which was done by Hildur Guðnadóttir, provides plenty of subtle mood music throughout the feature (adding dramatic uneasiness / tension in many scenes), Joker does have a few recognizable music selection songs featured in the film; adding to the movie’s off-beat dark humor and nuances.

  

Of course, the success of Joker, despite whether you like the movie or not, rest on the shoulders of actor Joaquin Phoenix in his portrayal of Arthur Fleck (i.e the Joker) in the movie. Fortunately, Phoenix, known for his roles in Gladiator, Walk Hard, and Her, succeeds in the role and certainly knows how to play the character; making Arthur Fleck come alive with enough big-screen presence and grounded realism. Much like the character himself, Phoenix (as mentioned above) has always been a little bit of an “oddball” and his past character performance and / or the movies that he usually partakes in captures the essence of that quite well. Thus, the idea of him playing the “Clown Prince of Gotham” is really no stretch of the imagination and Phoenix quite excels in playing up the madness of the character. With the movie being more of “grounded” tale, the Joker has a more “realistic” origin and its quite fascinating to see Arthur’s journey (a sort of “descent into madness”) as the movie’s story unfolds and seeing Phoenix handle the wacky / mentally “offbeat” personality of Arthur Fleck is nothing short of genius. You certainly feel his pain and struggle throughout majority of the film, which cast a real-world light upon the struggle of mental illness and of today’s society, and Phoenix’s portrays those emotion imbalances perfectly; creating a character that is more of normal everyday person than a supervillain in a comic book. In the end, whether do or don’t agree with me about Joker, no one can deny the truly captivating performance that Joaquin Phoenix pulls off; giving one of the best performances of his career.

The rest of the cast, including actress Frances Conroy (American Horror Story and 6 Souls) as Arthur’s mentally / physically ill mother Penny Fleck, actor Glenn Fleshler (Boardwalk Empire and Billons) as Arthur’s clown co-worker Randall, actor Leigh Gill as Arthur’s other clown co-worker Gary, actor Brett Cullen (Under the Dome and 42) as billionaire philanthropist / running for mayor of Gotham Thomas Wayne, and actors Bill Camp (Dark Waters and 12 Years a Slave) and Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire and Silver Linings Playbook) as Gotham Detectives Garrity and Burke, make up the rest of the supporting players of the movie. As always, some have a bit more screen-time as others, but all of these acting talents (in this category) are solid in their respective throughout the feature.