Wright or Wrong: Joker

From a marketing standpoint, "Joker" is perhaps one of the most brilliantly conceived films of the entire year.

A revisionist take on the iconic Batman villain in an era demanding more human complexity out of cinematic baddies, driven by an artistic vision of a director aiming to pay homage to the works of Martin Scorsese in order to tackle contemporary issues of violence and mental health stigmatization within society, complete with the involvement of one of the industry's most lauded method actors in Joaquin Phoenix taking on the title role to lend the film and its genre potential Oscar season credibility is marketing genius.

Add in the fires stoked by the public perception over what qualifies as glamorizing and glorifying disturbing behavior and violence in the media (as though pointing out the mere existence of something is a ringing endorsement, regardless of framing and intent), and you have a theoretical movie producer's fantasy come to life.

Courtey images

Outside of the stance of correlation not being the same as causality when it comes to disturbing subject matter in fiction, I can't make the call on whether anyone will individually find "Joker" to cross some sort of line of good taste, outside of a reminder that good taste is subjective and if you have a point to make, you'd do well to remember that.

What I can say about "Joker" itself, is that it's always a shame to see such a provocative work fall victim to its own hype. Giving all credit where it's due, director Todd Phillips stretches himself to achieve depths that I never would have thought he was capable of in this lifetime. From the seedy cinematography of Gotham's streets to the editing techniques used to capture the mindset of our would-be Clown Prince of Crime, Arthur Fleck, as a tragedy in motion deserving of compassion but not necessarily wholly sympathetic, the level of filmmaking on display in this movie is undeniably admirable and almost out of left field from the person you would associate with having made "The Hangover."

The techniques weave a narrative of the cruelties of society and its stigmatization of the mentally ill, the damages caused by a selfish upper class aiming to help out of a sense of ego stroking more than moral drive, and all of it is buoyed by a terrific performance by Phoenix, who sells a man that wants to find his peace in the world despite running into a roadblock that nobody truly cares to help him with that compounds the struggles of everyday life in a cesspool like Gotham City.

Unfortunately, it's also been quite a while since I've seen a movie with such triple A components such as "Joker," ultimately come together to form something so pedestrian. The film wears its Scorsese influence on its sleeve as a fitting stylistic choice for character molding and storytelling but less so for making themes truly resonate. Similar to the early seasons of "Gotham," before the show decided to dive off of a cliff in favor of being a whacko B-movie, TV series, "Joker" doesn't simply tell a story that could have been told outside of Batman cannon but is actively hindered by the cannon it adheres to.

The straightforward narrative of Arthur Fleck's character study looks at a lot of issues but doesn't really have much of substance to contribute to their discussion, despite several sequences of horrific and psychologically traumatic brilliance.

Despite the more hyperbolic and morally grandstanding rhetoric surrounding the film, “Joker” really only has 2 or 3 moments of actual violence but those scenes are so appropriately intense and impactful that nobody in their right mind could mistake it for carrying any sort of weight of glorification, not only because of the horrifying impact they leave on Arthur himself but because he’s not wholly innocent in the circumstances leading up to them, even if his problems exacerbate the tragic consequences that unfold.

In trying to be deeper character study of its chaotic subject matters quirks however, the movie begins to fall too heavily on unreliable narrator tricks that do begin to mount and make the impact of the plot more than a little bit murky. Whatever flaws it may have, it remains the most compelling thread of a movie that could desperately use a 15 minute trim as it terminally wastes any cast member that isn't Phoenix.

This fragile balancing act suffers routine derailing whenever the movie flirts with bringing in actual Batman mythos, culminating in a climax that is equally eye rolling and nonsensical in terms of what this film was aiming to achieve and what sense any of it makes in relation to the iconography that they so desperately want to play with.

None of this is ultimately to say that "Joker" is a bad movie in the slightest. The masterclass filmmaking centered on Phoenix superb performance does a lot to float it through some of the hokier and more drawn out portions of the movie for a character study that is consistently thought provoking and compelling.

From Arthur summarizing mental health struggles as working hard to act "right" without ever getting due credit for your efforts to conform, to the White Knight wannabe portrayal of a Thomas Wayne more self-interested in the worth of the Wayne name than genuinely interested in the philanthropy that would inspire his son’s future as a caped crusader, there's a lot about "Joker" that is genuinely and admirably bold. It's just that some of those thoughts that are provoked are surprised at how well this turned out, coupled with ways this could have been great instead of just okay.

3 out of 5