Put on a Serious Face: "Joker" black as pitch and uncompromising with an unshakably chilling Joaquin Phoenix

Joker (2019)

122 min.

Release Date: October 4, 2019 (Wide)

Black as pitch and more provocative than one might assume a comic-book film to ever be, “Joker” reigns as a ballsy, psychologically piercing character study that doesn’t condone the actions of its antihero but seeks to understand him. For those expecting an origin story of a one-note villain ready to tango with Batman, this is far from that and actually closer to 2018's staggering, Lynne Ramsay-directed "You Were Never Really Here," which also starred Joaquin Phoenix as a nuanced Travis Bickle type. Writer-director Todd Phillips (2016’s “War Dogs”), working at the height of his powers after R-rated comedies like “Old School” and “The Hangover” trilogy, and screenwriter Scott Silver (2016’s “The Finest Hours”) have executed a bleak, uncompromising, and much more courageous vision than anything in the realm of studio blockbuster filmmaking, and it’s an unprecedented shock to the system. 

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is anything but happy, despite his job as a clown-cum-sign twirler, his Tourette’s-like condition of laughing uncontrollably, and his aspirations to be a stand-up comedian. He lives in Gotham City in a grimy apartment with his ailing mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), and gets beaten up by a gang of punks in an alley by his own broken sign to which his boss (Josh Pais) demands be taken out of his salary. Arthur sees a health professional, but funding for his appointments and his seven medications are cut. When a gun he’s given by co-worker Randall (Glenn Flescher) for protection falls out of his pocket during one of his clown gigs at a children’s hospital, he is fired. Then, when he’s on the subway on his way home, three jerks in suits who work for mayor running mate Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) harass him, Arthur shoots them dead. With nothing to lose and feeling like society has abandoned him, Arthur snaps and crosses the point of no return as the clown-faced “Joker,” just as late talk-show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) invites him on for his failed attempt at stand-up comedy.

An alternative origin story for the Joker, set in 1981, “Joker” was unmistakably modeled after Martin Scorsese’s 1976’s “Taxi Driver” and 1983’s “The King of Comedy,” and it looks and feels like a gritty ‘70s motion picture, complete with a Saul Bass-designed Warner Bros. logo. Such nods as casting Robert De Niro in a supporting role and characters putting a gun finger to their heads go beyond flattering imitation, however. The film doesn’t entirely forgo the traditional Batman lore—Bruce Wayne’s mom’s pearls and all—but director Todd Phillips makes sure it seamlessly seeps into the real story he’s telling about a mentally ill man falling off the deep end.

As one watches Joaquin Phoenix, it is not only forgotten during the film that Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger already made the roles of the Joker iconic—and distinctly their own—in 1989’s “Batman” and 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” respectively, but one forgets about watching an actor entirely. Phoenix is that committed and chilling, profoundly disappearing into the skin of this interpretation’s Arthur Fleck. Right down to his gaunt torso twisting and ribs projected, an uncontrollable laugh that often gets caught in his throat, and a balletic dance, Phoenix puts an indelible stamp on the character as if it was the first. He makes Arthur sympathetic to a point when he is still just a broken man and a walking tragedy who feels disenfranchised before becoming even more diseased and irredeemable, and the film understands that he is a product of his environment and upbringing. As Arthur further loses his grasp on reality and his own sanity, his dance down a large staircase, set to Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2,” is an unforgettable moment of many. 

Lawrence Sher’s intimate, gorgeously textured cinematography and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s propulsive, portent-filled score are the other big stars here to ensure that "Joker" isn’t just a film entirely hinging on its tour-de-force performance, but forceful filmmaking all around. There’s also an impressive roster of talent filling supporting parts, even if they all exist in Phoenix’s orbit. Frances Conroy is terrific as Penny, a woman who loves her son but may not be all there anymore, and Zazie Beetz (2018’s “Deadpool 2”) is wonderfully charismatic as Arthur’s single mother neighbor Sophie, and while the character might be underdeveloped into what she exactly sees in Arthur, that is the point. Rattling and unsettling but not unfeeling, “Joker” never for one second celebrates the mayhem created by Arthur Fleck when he “becomes” Joker because as the third act comes to an operatic crescendo, it is all very frightening and riveting with disturbing sociological implications. Though it’s hard to say that this is the kind of film that many will come away enjoying, “Joker” is hard to shake, and it’s better for it.

Grade: A -