Joker

Grade: B

Joker might be the best-looking and best-feeling movie I’ve seen all year. The colors, cinematography, and tone are everything I like to see in a movie. It is 100% style, but unfortunately, 70% substance at best. It tells the origin story of the most popular Batman villain. Since there is no definitive Joker backstory in the original comics, anybody making a movie about it has a lot of creative leeway. Director Todd Phillips (Road Trip, Old School, the Hangover trilogy) sets this particular Gotham City in a time when people smoked everywhere, security guards with metal detectors were obviously not present, and the most recent song on the soundtrack is from the 70s. I would have guessed the 70s, but there are answering machines, and a theater marquee advertises Blow Out and Zorro, the Gay Blade – which puts it in 1981.

Joaquin Phoenix plays the title character – birth name Arthur Fleck. He has hair that reminded me of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and his demeanor has the eerie detachedness of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Joker owes a lot to Taxi Driver and other Martin Scorcese films of the 70s, and indeed De Niro has a supporting role here, as a Letterman/Carson-like talk show host who Arthur idolizes. Arthur lives with his aging mother in an apartment which is likely not one of the nicer ones in Gotham City. He was recently fired from his job as a children’s party clown for maybe-or-maybe-not accidentally bringing a gun to one of his gigs, where it falls out of his coat. He decides to try his hand at stand-up comedy. I wonder if anybody else recognized Gary Gulman in his cameo. Gulman is a recent favorite comedian of mine (incidentally, he has a new special that premiers on HBO tonight), and does a bit from his real-life stand-up act in a club scene in Joker.

Arthur has a tic where he gets into compulsive laughing fits. He carries around a laminated card that he hands to people that basically says “Please excuse me. I’m mentally ill, and sometimes I start laughing even when I don’t find anything funny. I mean no harm, and please kindly return the card to me when you’re done reading this.” This is a courageous performance from Phoenix. He acts, dances, and laughs up a storm. The character’s potential connection to Bruce Wayne and his family brings up some interesting possibilities. You might not immediately think of Robert De Niro for the role of a beloved, charismatic talk show host who is bubbling with personality, but it’s an inspired casting choice, and rings appropriate when you think of his earlier films that this one pays homage to.

I was all set to give Joker a certain grade, and especially ding it for a problematic subplot with a love interest, which was utterly unbelievable and felt like it was manufactured and tacked on from the screenplay factory. But Joker had a couple of tricks up its sleeve for me, and this gets more or less explained away. Other aspects remain unsuccessful. Its darkness and payoffs are not always earned. However, I have to recommend it as the refreshing alternative it is to the cleaner-cut, bombastic Marvel/superhero films of late. And as I mentioned, it looks so good, you could watch it with the sound off. Maybe it would play better that way. It is also not sure when it wants to end. The perfect conclusion would have been right after the line “You wouldn’t get it.” Then abruptly go to black with the title taking up the whole screen in giant letters. Wouldn’t that have been something?

Grade: B