Joker Review: A Hypnotizing Character Study!

‘Joker’ starring Joaquin Phoenix is a must watch, especially for his hypnotizing performance. I went in without reading or knowing much about the movie and once I allowed myself to be consumed by it, the movie proved to be a deeply thought provoking and formidable piece of cinematic work – and Joaquin’s performance is bound to consume a viewer.

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It is difficult to view ‘Joker’ as merely an origin story of a super villain in a comic book universe. Todd Phillips, the director and co-writer, has used the format of an origin story as an excuse to pose some hard realities of how criminals actually come to be, to an otherwise indifferent cinema going audience who might be seeking just a visual spectacle.

‘Joker’’ is set in the 80’s in the fictional city of Gotham and tells the story of a psychologically unstable man by the name Arthur Fleck, just before his imminent descent into the persona of Joker – an unhinged psychotic murderous criminal. The brilliance of the movie lies in the fact that the story unfolds through the mind of Arthur Fleck who is an unreliable narrator and gives the audience a chance to brew in the mind of a mad man executed to near perfection.

It appears that Arthur has been dealt a very tough hand in life and he has been unable to cope with his circumstances since childhood. As a result, even as a grown man, Arthur is an extremely sensitive man-child who constantly feels victimized by the outside world when in fact he is a victim of his own weak mind. Of course, the outside world is more trouble than help to such a weak mind.

All Arthur pines for is some undivided attention and kindness from the outside world and that’s difficult to find even for a fairly stable minded person. Arthur’s psychological anarchy finally translates into extreme violence when he corners himself into believing that every single person he trusted or looked up to has betrayed him.

‘Joker’ relies on a basic truth of life that we are all a product of our circumstances and conditions – no one is born evil and there isn’t just a single factor to blame in how a person turns out. The story immaculately weaves a web of circumstances to showcase how unfortunately Arthur has never been able to catch a break in his life. In doing so, the story has casually touched upon myriads of subjects like the ignorance of privilege, neglectful parenting, perils of an abusive childhood, role of genetics in mental health conditions, need for awareness regarding mental health and the craziness of mass hysteria. In a way, there isn’t a single origin story behind Joker the super villain.

The story of Joker is not inconceivably new or out of the ordinary, yet it remains a story that the general audience does not feel comfortable acknowledging as reality. It is easier to live life believing criminals are objectively evil, isn’t it? ‘Joker’ does not condone the evil acts of its protagonist but dares to be a social experiment in testing the pulse of our current human society by asking the audience to sympathize with the flawed human in a super villain.

An ideal human society would probably genuinely sympathize with the weakest and the most undesirable, acknowledge the source of criminal behavior and remedy it with kindness without actually condoning the criminal behavior. But that’s a far cry from how human societies actually function!

All this said, the best bits of the movie still remain how the origin story of Joker merges with the story of Bruce Wayne aka Batman. The connections creep in when least expected and in a manner that declares Joker to be the true antagonist in the life story of Batman.

The version of Joker presented by Todd Phillips is a deeply disturbed, unfortunate and sad character and there could not have been a better actor to play the character than Joaquin Phoenix. Joaquin has always excelled at character work and in ‘Joker’ he seems to have truly given it his all from transforming physically to look like a skinny and repulsive loser to acting completely delusional and maniacal. He has managed to create a perfectly dark world that is Arthur Fleck’s mind and carries the audience through that disturbed mind throughout the movie. And of course, Joaquin’s version of the Joker’s signature laughter was at once both disturbing and painful.

But it was the small things that Joaquin did which emphasized Arthur’s lack of overall maturity – how he ran weirdly like a child or spoke on stage before an audience like a child. In the scene when Arthur Fleck finally transforms as the Joker, the character feels like he is at his zenith and yet all we can feel for him is pity for he has reached the point of no return. It is a scene full of contradictions and it is Joaquin’s charm that delivers the mark. His performance truly deserves some awards recognition!

‘Joker’ is a well-balanced movie in terms of the contribution from various technical departments. Though not really a comic universe spectacle, the cinematography and color grading in the movie was exceptional and made it quite the visual treat. The background score as well helped drive home the chaos in the protagonist’s mind and held up its own.

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‘Joker’ isn’t an easy watch to say the least. However, it is refreshing that the movie has dared to step into a comic book universe to hold up a mirror to the society we live in – a chance to examine the society’s role in creating criminals.

Rating – 4/5 | Grade – A

Images via Warner Bros. Pictures