★★☆☆☆
1 October 2019
A movie review of JOKER. |
"I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire f**king life," Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix)
If you want to see a better film about class warfare, see SNOWPIERCER [2013]. If you want to see a better film where an actor loses a tonne of weight, has his character become a sociopath, and causes mayhem, see NIGHTCRAWLER [2014]. The buzz around this film is inexplicable. Is the JOKER the most overrated film of 2019 so far? One was sceptical when the director of THE HANGOVER movies was announced to take on a seemingly serious/weighty comic book flick, and unfortunately the doubts have been proven correct.
If you want to see a better film about class warfare, see SNOWPIERCER [2013]. If you want to see a better film where an actor loses a tonne of weight, has his character become a sociopath, and causes mayhem, see NIGHTCRAWLER [2014]. The buzz around this film is inexplicable. Is the JOKER the most overrated film of 2019 so far? One was sceptical when the director of THE HANGOVER movies was announced to take on a seemingly serious/weighty comic book flick, and unfortunately the doubts have been proven correct.
There is something to be said for blockbusters dealing with economic hardship. It is so rare. It can be done without preachiness. Why not use cinema to both entertain and enlighten? A waste of resources not to, right? SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING [2017] started to say something interesting about the haves and have-nots. JOKER opens with a news broadcaster talking about Gotham’s citywide state of emergency. (Didn’t TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES [1990] commence similarly?) There is mention of people struggling and out of work, but it is not shown or elaborated upon. Somehow Arthur Fleck makes a living supporting himself and his infirm mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), on a third-rate clown’s salary? This half-baked social commentary frustrates.
Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) and Wayne Enterprises are re-written as greedy focal points of narcissism. Thomas decides to run for mayor. Is Batman’s dad meant to be Donald Trump? Or any other billionaire who thinks he would be good at politics? (Even Alfred Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge) is a douche. Is there a point?) I have no problem with revising a supporting player. But again, half-baked is not satisfying.
Perhaps my expectations were askew? I was anticipating a bleak psychological study. Instead JOKER feels to be just a movie for Batman fans. The ending does not require everything to be spelled out. If it had held back a little, there would have been more power. (There is also a grating in-joke, the casting of Robert De Niro in a KING OF COMEDY-esque [1982] role-reversal. There’s also the TAXI DRIVER-lite [1976] setting that works against JOKER, reminding of its inferiority.)
Why devise a Joker origin story? These flicks ruin the mystery of heroes/villains/anti-heroes – see for example, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE [2009], HANNIBAL RISING [2007], SOLO [2018], etc. Heath Ledger changing his biography made him even scarier. The Joker here is sad, rather than intimidating.
This is the first Joaquin Phoenix performance to underwhelm me. It kept reminding me of Jack Nicholson in BATMAN [1989]. See in particular the relationship between dancing and violence. Self-conscious over the top exhibitionism was ruined by Jim Carrey in BATMAN FOREVER [1995], and should be regulated to the 1990s. Why bring it back?
“Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” Arthur Fleck. The film explicitly asks the question: What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that doesn't care? The intertwining of mental illness and villainy has gone beyond hackneyed, into the dubious. In our times of shining a spotlight on mental health, the topic demands an approach of sensitivity and intelligence. There is even a mother-son PSYCHO-esque [1960] allusion here. Yawn. There is the search for a father figure: clown colleague Randall (Glenn Fleshler), Murray (Robert De Niro), and Thomas Wayne. Arthur is said to be a victim of abuse. Compare and contrast James McAvoy’s antagonist in SPLIT [2016] and GLASS [2019]. Is Arthur Fleck to Joker meant to be a fascinating transformation? He comes across as already having a loose grip on social niceties from the start. Paul Verhoeven’s HOLLOW MAN [2000] suffered from similar character arc problems.
De-/evolving over two hours is too often trite. Is Arthur Fleck/Joker an anti-hero? He mostly kills unsympathetic people during the runtime. Though, for some reason, by completion, Joker states he doesn’t believe in anything. JOKER appears to be grasping for the anarchy of THE DARK KNIGHT [2008], and falls massively short.
There is little special about this film. Heath Ledger’s portrayal is still leagues ahead of the others.