Rated R

Directed by Todd Phillips

Written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beats, Robert De Niro, Frances Conroy, and Brett Cullen

The comic book genre has gone through numerous changes over the last ten years, with films like Deadpool, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The Dark Knight only being a handful of examples. Warner Brothers is continuing to push those boundaries by trying an experiment where they create a branch of DC films not connected to their already established DC Extended Universe that act as more of character pieces. Their first attempt at this formula is focused on the Joker, who is by far one of the most popular villains of all time and has already gotten cinematic acclaim with the late-great Heath Ledger winning an Oscar for his performance in 2008. 

Joker is based on the iconic DC comics character as it acts as an origin story for the Clown Prince of Crime by focusing on the character of Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Phoenix. In the midst of a Gotham City that has become more corrupt and cruel, Arthur is struggling to make it as a standup comedian. Paired with his growing mental issues and a need to look over his sick mother, Arthur begins to go even deeper into his own emotional slump. After a series of events drive Arthur further down, he reaches his breaking point by turning to violence on the ones who have treated him poorly. In a sadistic manner, Arthur feels inspired by what he did, leading him to transform into his clown alter-ego, the Joker.

With Joaquin Phoenix on board in the title role and boatloads of controversy surrounding the film’s themes of violence, the buzz around Joker has been extreme to say the least. But is the quality of this movie going to warrant all its anticipation? As it turns out, Warner Brothers has succeeded in that regard with Joker being an extraordinarily complex and bold cautionary tale that is completely relevant in today’s culture.

Let’s not skip over it any further: Joaquin Phoenix is the star of this film in both screen-time and memorability. Phoenix is absolutely incredible in the role as Arthur Fleck/Joker as he brings hundreds of layers of depth and complexity into every single second he is on screen. From the way he presents himself, to how painfully and maniacally he laughs, to even his most basic moments of just watching T.V.; Joaquin disappears so heavily into the role that it is easy to forget he is an actor acting, not an actual human being. Since this movie is clearly a character piece, that is a remarkable accomplishment in acting. Crazy enough, the quality does not even end there with his performance, because it is just that good. 

On top of his in-the-moment acting, Phoenix also layers Arthur’s transformation into the Joker extremely well where nearly every single change he goes through feels completely believable. Yet, Joaquin simultaneously manages to balance that without making him seem sympathetic, which is especially critical given how psychotic his behavior is by the end. Even though there are a couple of other strong performances, such as Robert De Niro’s energetic talk show-host and Brett Cullen’s cold Thomas Wayne, nothing comes close to matching Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. An Oscar nomination for his performance is undeniably going to be in the very near future.

Truth be told, Phoenix’s performance is not just phenomenal in its own right, since his tragic yet haunting nature set the tone for the entire film. As expected, Joker is an undoubtedly dark film that travels down Arthur’s journey in a twisted spiral with no punches held back. This movie touches on numerous hot-button topics that permeate through today’s society, including mental health issues, how people treat each other, the tension of class division, how people with mental illnesses are viewed, along with many others. All of these different themes are handled in an extremely mature manner, with nothing sticking out as distasteful or overly pretentious. 

Everything adds up to make the film’s story achieve a majority its goals, creating an intentionally disturbing cautionary tale that is absolutely. Again, Warner Brothers should be admired for greenlighting this bold movie where the main character is a deranged serial killer; they simultaneously manage to avoid any pitfalls in making care too much about this insane.

How bizarre is it that this dark character-piece was somehow made by the same man who directed The Hangover trilogy. Todd Phillips did an excellent job directing this film in a way that elevates him to the level of an auteur. Phillips’ use of awkward camera angles, interesting close-ups, extreme long shots, and numerous other subtle techniques to Joker creates an enormous visual identity, completEly fitting with the film’s tone. Similar to Phoenix, one would hope that Todd Phillips is a guarantee Best Director Nominee by the time Oscar nominations come out early next year. 

The same also goes for his DP (Director of Photography) Lawrence Sher, with a color palette that is so bleak with an oddly poignant quality, it adds to the film’s artistic nature immensely. Rounding out the tone-setters behind the scenes is a terrific score done by Hildur Guðnadóttir that expresses the tragic elements of Arthur’s story beautifully, while raising the tension to the appropriate levels of insanity in other moments.

With all that Joker has going for it, there is one crucial flaw that prevents the film from reaching the heights of a masterpiece. For as long as the movie takes with Arthur’s journey into becoming the Joker, it oddly takes too long with it in general. This is not as much of a pacing issue as it is a fault with the plot’s structure. When a majority of the movie is about how Arthur’s life sucks, it not only feels slightly repetitive, but it also undermines the entire portion of when he is Joker. For a film that wants to be a cautionary tale at the end of the day, there is not nearly enough of the “caution” side necessary for it to be a grand slam success.

Still, that problem may be fairly major, yet it comes nowhere close to tainting all of the other factors that make Joker great. Whether it be about Phoenix’s performance, the profound story, or the master class filmmaking, the conversations about this film have been endless to say the least and that is not stopping anytime soon. 

Considering everything, Joker is a 9/10 film and will likely stay in the conversation all the way into Oscars season.  

9/10