Joker *** (2019, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Todd Phillips’s neo noir origins story Joker is smart and sophisticated, slick and strong, proficient, powerful and pungent, but it is also incredibly nasty, dislikeable and unpleasant. A full-on horror movie portrait of a serial killer, it is the equivalent of Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood for cynical nastiness. Pretty sick, vile and violent, it is not a nice film to have around.

Though set in the early Eighties, it goes for a disturbing contemporary reality and relevance, with its dystopian end of days feel, capturing the zeitgeist. It keys in with all our fears of urban decay and society collapse. It is dark and decadent, a horror film, a truly horrible film, recalling Taxi Driver, I guess, with a touch of The King of Comedy. Joker is a frustrated, disrespected, abused Taxi Driver-style loner who has nowhere to go in society, is overlooked, derided and despised as a pathetic outsider, and nothing to offer except killing. That is plenty chilling alright. The film is set in a comic book Gotham, but what we see is obviously today’s New York. It is going to be a dark night.

Joker himself is The anti-King of Comedy, a clown who can’t raise a single laugh. People are prepared to laugh at him, though, and he is going to have the last laugh of course. The evil clown thing is getting a bit stale now though. Generally, the Batman thing would be getting a bit stale now too, but Phillips has found a way to revive the formula by going all Deadpool on it.

Todd Phillips has a plot, thank goodness, but he has lost the plot. This is a comic book story. So, when does the fun start and the entertainment begin exactly? Wasn’t Jack Nicholson both scary and funny in Batman? Yes, he was. Yes Joker goes beyond the boundaries of the genre, but no that isn’t a good thing. It goes to strong bloody violence, disturbing behaviour, strong language and brief sexual images, instead.

Joaquin Phoenix is outstanding in a brilliant tour-de-force turn as poor dear Arthur Fleck, but it is a one-note turn, with way too much of the same giggling and grinning and gurning (but then  what else does Joker do?). It is the equivalent of Rene Zellweger’s turn in Judy, snazzy and showy, a little bit empty.

[Spoiler alert] Arthur Fleck is mother fixated like Norman Bates in Psycho, and, like Norman Bates, he is going to kill his mother, along with the man he thinks is his father, Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen). Arthur turns up at the Wayne mansion, and meets and greets the young kid Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olson) and is turned away by Alfred Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge). He eventually seeks out and confronts Thomas Wayne in a bathroom. This is creepy, bad karma stuff, playing on audiences’ basic fears.

Salvation from a life of serial killing crime for Arthur Fleck could come in the form of nice, sympathetic next-door neighbour Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz) or from smarmy TV talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), who sees video clips of Joker’s appalling stage act, and invites him on his live TV show. Robert De Niro is the same man who starred in Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy of course. Phillips wants to tune in to Martin Scorsese’s world, and bask in its glory.

Looks wise, the movie goes for a stylish old-style film noir gloss (cinematography by Lawrence Sher), with very striking retro production design by Lawrence Sher, and, by contrast, a very modern music score Hildur Guðnadóttir, creepily effective. These are distinguished pieces of work. There’s a good soundtrack too of carefully chosen tracks. Stephen Sondheim must be very glad he penned ‘Send in the Clowns’ for a now almost forgotten 40-year-old musical. The royalties will roll in for ever. Phillips orchestrates all these disparate elements with huge confidence and success.

The movie stars with the Warner Brothers logo of the early 1980s, and ends with an antique ‘The End’ title and old Hollywood style end credits. When it says ‘The End’, it means ‘The End’. There are no further scenes. Unfortunately, though the film feels like ‘The End’, Joker 2 must be just around the corner.

Joker won two Oscars: Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Original Score (Hildur Guðnadóttir). It won two Golden Globes: Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Original Score – Motion Picture (Hildur Guðnadóttir). It won three BAFTA Film Awards: Best Leading Actor, Original Music and Best Casting (Shayna Markowitz).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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