Joker (2019)

Setting opening weekend box office records for an October release director Todd Phillips stand alone Joker movie has attracted a fair amount of controversy, and while that is not entirely unwarranted it is perhaps a little overstated. Phillips, a comedy director perhaps best known for

'The Hangover Trilogy' goes pretty dark in this movie, and he definitely had a distinct vision for what he wanted it to be, a vision derived for the most part from the work of Martin Scorsese, who ironically recently let his unflattering feelings towards comic book movies be known in the press. There is a lot of Taxi Driver in Joker, as well as King of Comedy, and probably even some Raging Bull. A significant non Scorsese influence on the film would probably be Network, as the central character in this movie would certainly echo the sentiment "I'm mad as hell and I'm not goanna take it anymore."
 

Set in what appears to be an early 1980's Gotham City, a crime ridden, volatile place in the midst of a weeks long garbage strike, the community is a powder keg ready to go off. Joaquin Phoenix is Arthur Flick, a mentally unstable man working for a rent-a-clown service and living with his mother in a decaying apartment building. Arthur has dreams of being a stand up comedian, only he's not very funny and somewhat debilitated by a mental condition that produces uncontrollable fits of laughter, principally at times when he is feeling stressed or awkward, which is pretty often. He also has something of an obsession with a Johnny Carson like talk show host named Murray Franklin, who played by Robert De Niro works to reinforce all the Scorsese comparisons (though apparently at one point Alec Baldwin was slated to play the part). A video recording of Flick bombing at a comedy club named Pogo's ("Pogo" was the name that John Wayne Gacy the serial murder performed under when he worked as a children's birthday clown) results in his been invited on Franklin's show, needless to say that will not end well.

 

There is a surprising number of plot lines running through Joker leading up to a climatic confrontation on live late night TV. There are Arthurs job problems and deterring mental state, a romantic sub plot, a triple homicide that bizarrely mutates into a mass protest movement, and Billionaire Thomas Wayne's entry into the Gotham mayoral race, believing that only he can save the city. There is also a back story concerning Arthurs mothers previous employment at Wayne Manor. Crowded and homage heavy the film often gives the impression of trying too hard, of being princpily pastiche which is not to say uninteresting, the film really goes a long away towards coming together in its last half hour, and arguably has something to say, though its been said better by those it is imitating.

 

Phoenix gives a strong performance though, and the period look of the film is just great, managing to not seem overstated. Though riffing on the cinematic past it has some topical relevance to the present, including a focus on mental health and a protest movement with echoes of Occupy Wall street, but also overtones of Trumpism, with a beleaguered population so disgusted with the elites, they would seemingly put up with any crime committed by any clown provided he sticks it to them. Joker is unlike any 'comic book movie' I can think of in terms of its overt cinematic pretensions, it doesn't succeed at being anything beyond an imitation, but even as imitation it is heftier then most contemporary cinematic originals. Ironically in its character study it makes one long for a golden age before comic book movies. ***