The Joker

If I hear send in the clowns one more time...

I wanted to write this up as soon as I could while my memory is still fresh.

I will start off by applauding DC for trying to do something different than it's normal super hero fare. With that being said, this was not a movie that we needed. This is the kind of origin story I don't want, especially for the Joker.

As I think about this movie, there were many things that I thought were problematic. I swear I will have a few good things to say, but let me start with what I didn't like. This movie is extremely slow. I get they are trying to do a slow build, but time is money and this movie wasted both for me in the first half of the movie. We follow around Arthur Fleck, who will become the Joker. He is the saddest of sad sacks, with aspirations to be a comedian, but missing that thing you need. Good jokes.

We spend too much time in his day to day as he lives with his mom and tries to chase his dreams. They try to make him sympathetic by saying that he has a mental illness and a tough upbringing. The first mistake is to attribute his iconic laughing as some kind of mental condition where he laughs for no reason. I call shenanigans. To say that the one thing the Joker is known for is out of his control is BS. So I guess he's not really a bad guy, he's just misunderstood? Please.

As the movie unfolds, surprise surprise, things are not quite what they seem in Arthur's relationship with his mother and his relationship with those around him. Let me pause and say that Joaquin Phoenix does an amazing job. In fact, his acting might be the only thing that is good about this movie. However, if I have to see a few more scenes of him weirdly dancing in his underwear again, it would be too soon if it is any time before NEVER.

Probably my biggest problem about this movie is they try to make him sympathetic and I found that hard to do. This is a guy that I'm supposed to root for? Life beats him down and the way he finally stands up for himself is to start killing people? I hope this isn't a spoiler, but this is a movie about the Joker right? This movie goes out of it's way almost to convince you that in some twisted way, he is justified in his actions. I don't know if I can be down with that.

This movie is really dark and depressing. For half the movie, I was thinking, "Why am I watching this?" It wasn't enjoyable. The movie then quickly starts building to it's crescendo as things spiral out of control and only then, do we start to see the Joker emerge. It was a very long walk to get to that point. I kind of liked the last twenty minutes of the movie. Not because of the escalating violence, but because now there is some real tension and things are actually happening.

Bravo to DC. Slapping Joker on this film is bound to make money and from the looks of it, it already has. If you take away the Joker and it's loose ties to Batman, you're left with a movie about a sad sack that is angry at the world. You can say it is a good psychological study if you want. It just didn't need it to be "Joker".

No origin for the Joker will ever be good enough. The mystery of how he came to be is most of his appeal. It is what made Heath Ledger's Joker so menacing. He was truly unpredictable. In this movie, Arthur's turn is well forecast in bright, blinding lights. This movie also really fails to surprise.

Finally, my last thought. This movie had sections where you see stuff is happening in Arthur's head, so the rest of the movie I am left questioning what is real and what isn't. So then I kept waiting for the reveal and when it didn't happen, I am disappointed. The movie got too clever with it's own narrative and that was to it's detriment. If you have an unreliable narrator, how can you believe what you are seeing? The whole move starts to feel like some weird dream and we're about to wake up.

What I will say is that the acting is really good in this movie. The look of this movie is very consistent, as everything is grim and dreary. Again, Phoenix puts in some good work here and I will admit he has one of the best Joker laughs. Still though, I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie.