Joker review – a smart, dark look at American urban life
It is rare that a mainstream film is released with the intensity of hype employed to promote Joker. There is the award-winning acclaim that it has already enjoyed (at the prestigious Golden Lion at Venice) and wild stories about how police have had to be drafted into screenings on its first weekend of release, and claims that nobody wearing clown makeup will be allowed admission. That sounds to me like the invention of a studio publicity department in the same way that Hitchcock reputedly refused latecomers entry to Psycho . It has been marketed, aggressively, as an event film, a comic-book picture that stands comparison to the work of Scorsese rather than whichever hack(s) directed Avengers: Endgame. None of which quite answers the question: is it any good?
The answer is very much “yes”, albeit not, perhaps, in the way that you might imagine. For all of the scuttlebutt and rumours swirling around, this is still a piece of mainstream entertainment from a major Hollywood studio, directed by the man behind The Hangover and with two A-list lead actors in Joaquin Phoenix and Robert de Niro. Anyone going to it expecting a quasi-religious experience that redefines cinema will inevitably be disappointed. Those hoping for a smart, dark look at American urban life, leavened with a generous helping of social satire and with a knockout lead performance, will be altogether happier. Although I’m still not entirely sure about the inclusion of Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part 2 in a key scene, a moment at which the filmmakers overplay their hand and attempt to troll the audience. As if they needed to.
The film, for the uninitiated, deals with the “origin story” of Batman’s greatest nemesis, the Joker – although it must be noted that the scenes that try to tie the narrative into a wider comic-book storyline are some of the film’s weakest. (I worked out that this was the fourth time in recent cinema that I had seen Bruce Wayne’s parents be murdered; twice was probably more than enough.) As portrayed by Phoenix, Arthur Fleck is an aspiring stand-up comedian in the early Eighties who ekes out a pitiful living dressing up as a clown, enduring violent physical abuse in the course of his work and suffering from a variety of mental health issues. He lives with his mother in the kind of cursed and tiny apartment that unhappy people in the movies always have to inhabit, and his only real pleasure comes from watching oleaginous talk-show host Murray Franklin (De Niro), whose show he has fantasies of appearing on. His life meanders on in an unhappy way, until a co-worker’s misplaced kindness and a late-night subway encounter with a trio of drunken Wall Street bankers combine to memorably visceral effect. Cue the emergence of “Joker”.
A great deal of the advance word on the film suggested that it was a deliberate homage to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, and the influence of both is clear, especially in the casting of De Niro in a pivotal role. Its director and co-writer Todd Philips, obviously trying to distinguish himself with a far more serious picture than his previous work, manages to keep the feel authentically grimy and gritty, especially in the first act. There are long stretches when one feels as if one is watching some lost classic from the era in which it is set, and the casting of the fine character actor Bill Camp in a small role as a moustachioed detective only contributes to the seamy atmosphere of it all. The political dimension is also clearly present. Fleck finds himself, by accident, at the epicentre of a movement that sets the angry poor in their rat-infested city against the uncaring rich, and riots ensue. It is hard not to think of the gilets jaunes, or, of course, a certain red-baseball capped provocateur-in-chief. This is America, and it is definitely not great.
The casting of Phoenix, one of the edgiest and most risk-taking actors working today, represents a considerable coup for the filmmakers. Phoenix is usually found in altogether more esoteric fare, and this is his most high-profile role since 2005’s Walk The Line, although this could hardly be more different. There, he played Johnny Cash with gusto and brooding, but ultimately stopped short of investigating Cash’s truly dark side. Here, he is like someone unleashed. If he doesn’t erase memories of Heath Ledger’s Joker in Nolan’s The Dark Knight, that is solely because they are such different interpretations. Ledger’s terrifying, inexplicable figure seems to have emerged fully formed from hell; Phoenix’s Fleck has been created by a mixture of everything from inadequate mental health funding to deep-rooted parental issues. Initially, one pities him, before the violence shifts from being borderline justifiable to unpleasant.
Phillips’ film is technically excellent, thanks to Lawrence Sher’s appropriately gritty cinematography and, especially, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s growling, cello-heavy score, which grows in intensity and foreboding as the action progresses. I’m not sure that it is anything like as dangerous or threatening as some of the early publicity has indicated, although no doubt there will be a few idiots causing trouble while wearing clown masks on opening weekend. Instead, it is a splendidly effective look inside the mind of an extremely troubled man, played to perfection by a fine actor. We can only imagine what Donald Trump will make of it all, but no doubt he will offer his thoughts on social media in due course. And thus the whirligig of life imitating art imitating life will, once again, turn full circle. Frankly, if you weren’t laughing, you’d cry.
