Joker Review

It's been quite the interested road for DC lately. I could recount their recent history, as well as my brief opinions of all the movies, but I'll forgo for now. I will say briefly that, in a strange turn of events, the failure of "Justice League" in 2017 was probably the best thing to ever happen to them. Not only did it lead to solid stand-alone films in "Aquaman" and "Shazam!," but it also caused them to completely toss their idea of a cinematic universe or a cohesive timeline straight in the trash. And that's a good thing because, instead of chasing Marvel, they have the freedom to do whatever they want. Given that DC has quite the large Rogue's Gallery of villains, especially in the Batman universe, one of these things that they decided to do was to take a deep and dark dive into the backstory of their most iconic villain, that of the Joker. Initially this seemed like a bad idea. Part of the intrigue of the Joker was that his backstory is so mysterious. He just kinda exists as an agent of chaos. And now we're going to solve his mystery? And we're going to bring on Todd Phillips, director of "The Hangover," to do the job? Yeah, that seems like a no from me. Until Joaquin Phoenix signs on. And then we see those trailers, which were excellent. Suddenly DC had my full attention.

I certainly didn't go into this movie blind from all the reaction. Warner Bros. made the bold move of premiering this as the Venice Film Festival, where it won the top prize. Then a week or so later it showed at the Toronto International Film Festival. The festival audiences seemed to be giving it a ton of hype and praise as the best thing since sliced bread. That had me confused because, despite the strong hype, the score on the Rotten Tomatoes was floating around in the 70 percent range. That means not everyone was liking it. Then when it hit general release, the non-festival-going critics seemed to be more lukewarm on it and the Rotten Tomatoes score started dropping, putting it in the awkward situation of being at 69 percent despite already being rewarded the "Certified Fresh" label. Given that their benchmark for that is 75 percent, I think that's the lowest score for a Certified Fresh movie that I've seen. Meanwhile in the world of IMDb, the movie is currently at a 9.0 with 140,000 votes counted, good enough for 9th place on IMDb's Top 250. I scoffed at that score initially given that this happens to all DC movies. But they usually drop after opening weekend. This movie hasn't. On top of all of that, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is at 91 percent.

All this means that, even though I'd heard so much buzz and talk about this movie before seeing it Thursday night, I had no idea what to think. Especially since a whole bunch of controversy has been floating around, which I will most definitely get around to talking about. So it was almost as if I went in blind. And that excited me because I was just curious to know what they had up their sleeve with this. And boy is this movie quite the experience. I will say right up front that this is a heavy movie with a lot to say. If you're expecting just another one of these comic book films that's fun and inconsequential, you're walking into the wrong movie. In fact, this is so heavy that I purposely waited to write my review. Because, yes, I did see it on Thursday. In fact, Thursday previews for this movie began at 4 p.m. and that initial showing is the exact one I got into. I could've come home and thrown together a quick review and had it up before I went to bed. Or I could've typed it up on Friday. But I waited. And I purposely typed up my review of "The Addams Family" the next day instead because I needed to give this a weekend to ponder on and make sure I'm not overreacting. But now I've given it enough time to sit, so no more waiting around. It's time to dive into this spectacular piece of cinema.

If you know me well enough, you'll know that the type of movies I gravitate towards the most are the psychological movies, which means "Joker" was right up my alley. This is a movie that takes a comic book villain and decides to explore a realistic avenue into what would turn someone into such a monster. In doing so, this does not feel like a comic book movie at all. In fact, it almost feels like an idea that was initially unrelated to anything in the comic book realm, but they decided to slap an IP on it to sell tickets. I say "almost" because I don't believe that was ever part of the process. I think this began as a Joker film rather than being an unrelated property that evolved into a Joker film. I think they wanted to tell a realistic story involving the origins of Joker, then came up with an idea of how to do it. And given that the world of Gotham is the perfect setting to pull all of this off, it works rather well. But I say all of this to paint of picture of what this movie is like. If you hate all of this comic book stuff, you might want to give this movie a serious look because it's not that. On the flip side, as I've said before, if you love comic book movies, know that that's not what you're getting here. This is a dark and gritty drama that just so happens to have Gotham characters as the subject.

In regards to the Joker, this is something that, to my knowledge, does something that no other Joker story has done. It gives Joker a name. That name here is Arthur Fleck and he's a real human being. He's not born as this evil vessel. He's not sent as a servant of Satan to torment all heroes just for the sake of it. He's a man with a mental illness who is doing his best to live life. He has goals and aspirations. There's people he cares about. He's also self aware about his situation as he's seeing a therapist and taking medication. He's working a normal job to help support him and his mother who is alone and needs his help. And he also has a goal of being a comedian, so therein lies his career aspirations. But he also is in the unfortunate circumstance of living in a dark world that doesn't accept him. In defense of the world around him, they're not purposely all trying to conspire against him. They're just individually unable to connect with him because he's different than them. Perhaps in hindsight, if people had a crystal ball to see what he would eventually become, maybe one or two people would reach out and help him. But that's the thing. We don't have crystal balls. So because Arthur is different and has some strange conditions, there's no one around to embrace him.

I don't want to dive into any specifics, but I became rather fascinated with Arthur's journey. I felt for him. I understood his pain. Every time something bad happened to him, my heart ached a bit because I saw a human being who was trying to fit in and do what he was supposed to do, but nothing was working out. You see in the trailer some kids stealing his sign, then hitting him with it when they get to the alley. I wanted to grab those kids and scream at them. Then when he got to work the next day and his boss got mad at him for not returning the sign, I wanted to yell at the boss and explain the situation. When he was on the bus and was entertaining the little kid, then the parent got mad it him, I wanted to yell at the parent for not understanding the situation. Then he has his condition of his uncontrollable laughter. I learned that's a real condition. When that happened to him and everyone started looking at him funny, I wanted to get up and explain the situation. He tried to do that himself with a pre-prepared card, but whoever took the card didn't take it seriously. And they didn't return the card to him. I wanted to slap them upside the face. And even though I said I don't want to dive into specific, these are all small things that happen at the beginning of the movie.

But then things start to get increasingly worse and this is where I begin to become increasingly vague because now we're diving into things that aren't in the trailer or aren't in the introduction of the film. Because I don't want to give spoilers, yet I want to tell you how I reacted to all of this, I'm going to talk about my feelings instead of diving into events. All the smalls things that I stood up for Arthur for, I felt justified. But what made me feel increasingly more gross and uncomfortable was that I stayed on his side for most of the movie. And I kinda hated myself for it because the movie does a great job of continuing down this realistic road. Never once does Arthur's reactions become cartoonish. He doesn't start becoming evil because the plot requires him to become Joker. Everything remains natural. And when he does certain things, they often feel justified. Or, rather, I can understand why he chooses to do them. There's many moments where he does really awful things, but I specifically remember that the first of said awful thing his victims deserved what he got. And I was happy because of it. But then I was immediately disgusted with myself. I was like Kronk with the angel and devil on my shoulder and they were arguing with each other.

This is where a lot of the controversy comes in because a lot of people are complaining that this is a poorly timed movie that's going to do more harm than good. There's a lot of people in this dangerous world we live in who are in very similar situations as Arthur is in in this movie. In case you live under a rock, mass shootings happen on practically a weekly or monthly basis. Most of these are committed by mentally deranged people who were rejected by society and chose to go kill a bunch of people. The story of Arthur Fleck is their story. We often wonder how someone could get to the point where they would do something so unthinkably evil. In telling the story of Arthur Fleck, "Joker" tells us how. And because the movie tells us how, many people have decided that said mentally deranged people are going to watch this movie and either be instructed how to commit evil, be inspired to do so, or be justified in their actions. I've listened to and read opinions from people who I am confident are intelligent, well-educated people who are claiming these very things. Yet when I hear them, my blood begins to boil because I think that's so far off point. In no way is "Joker" glorifying violence or justifying Arthur's actions. It's instructing us how one can come to this point.

This is where my fascination of the psychology of human behavior kicks in. I love studying serial killers. I've watched every episode of "Criminal Minds." Netflix's "Mindhunter" is something that I ate up rather quickly. And I've often been confused as to why I love this type of stuff. Sometimes I'll step outside myself and think that I'm crazy for loving all of it. But then I reconcile with myself because I think understanding this human behavior can be critical in knowing how to prevent it. If we're to understand human behavior, I think it's important to be able to understand the entire spectrum. The movie and documentary about Ted Bundy that came out this year did not glorify or sexualize Ted Bundy. It told the honest, true story of who he was. Knowing that story can be beneficial for many reasons. In that case, one of the best lessons there is to know that some of the worst and most despicable human beings can take the appearance of someone normal. If we understand those lessons, we can be aware of our surroundings and it could save our life. If we know that the most normal of human beings could be struggling, we could save their lives. If we see someone struggling, sometimes one friend to makes all the difference.

That's why I cringe when people say "Joker" is dangerous. "Joker" is not dangerous. It's honest. It tells in the most realistic way possible how someone could could end up being so deranged and evil. It explains why and how someone could commit the most heinous acts imaginable and feel good about it. Now we can either have a knee-jerk reaction and say that this movie is bad because it's going to justify or condone evil behavior. We can even call in reckless in its approach by saying it did it accidentally. Or we can look at this story and insert ourselves into the situation. What can we do personally to help those around us? If we see someone who looks or acts differently, instead of just looking at them funny and mocking them or walking away, is there something we can do to help? As I was watching this movie, I was imagining that at any point in this movie, if someone would've come up to Arthur and treated him like a friend, maybe that would've changed his trajectory. Thus I think this movie can be a positive movie that shines a light to mental illness by showcasing the worst case scenario of what might happen if we're not careful. And it's often these honest and realistic approaches that can end up doing the most good because they don't sugarcoat everything.

In short, the portrayal of evil in film does not mean the film itself is evil. This is a constant uphill battle that I fight with the horror genre especially. Most horror movies are not evil. In fact, they're often quite the opposite. Many horror films showcase the idea that evil can be overcome. My favorite example is "The Exorcist." It's not an evil movie at all. In fact, "The Exorcist" is a very Catholic movie that showcases very Catholic themes. Just like that, "Joker" is not a movie that condones evil. It does not glorify violence. It's not reckless in its approach. Rather, it tells the story of a man whose life spirals downward out of control until everything simply becomes a comedy to him. And I think it ends up as one of the most horrifying portrayals of the Joker because he's so real. He's much more than just the typical comic book villain doing evil things because that's who he is. His arc is extremely tragic and I was able to understand every step of the way of what he was going through and why he did the things that he did. In fact, it's so well done that it sparks the interesting debate of whether this is a tragedy or if it's actually a triumph. On that note, the movie reminded me a lot of "The Witch," which is a horror movie that has similarly conflicting themes.

Unfortunately, though, that's where this conversation comes to end. Because the most natural step after describing all of this is to get into specifics and I've not labeled this as a spoiler review, nor am I going to. I've only touched on basics of the plot while spending a whole lot of time combating this lame controversy as to why this is not an evil movie, but is rather a very positive movie that can do a lot of good and spark a lot of important conversation. But there is, of course, so much more to say, but I'm going to restrain myself. Of course what I should say is that all the credit here goes to Joaquin Phoenix for what is sure to be a legendary performance. I think Heath Ledger would be proud. It will be an absolute shame of Phoenix doesn't get his Oscar nomination at the very least. A lot of credit to the writers for writing a very beautifully story that is perfectly constructed and to Todd Phillips for stepping out of his comfort zone of raunchy comedies and directing a masterwork. If I didn't know who directed this, my first guess would've been that Martin Scorsese had decided to take on the Joker. For me that's a huge positive. I already can feel that "Joker" is going to be a movie that sticks with me for a very long time as a potential personal favorite, so of course I'm giving it a 10/10.