Joker | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I just got out of the cinema and I had to write this review straight away because there's so much I want to say, and I didn't want to forget anything!

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) dreams of being a comedian, always knowing that his purpose in life is to make people laugh. But society doesn't always want to laugh. Instead, Fleck is ignored, degraded, made fun of, preyed upon and ostracised, simply because he's different. This treatment leads Fleck to slowly descend into madness, as he tries to give society exactly what it deserves.

A lot of people have been saying great things about this movie, and I'm adding my voice to the many and saying that this movie is completely incredible, and everyone needs to see it!

For a start, yes this is a movie about a comic book villain, but I wouldn't call this a comic book movie, at least not in the traditional sense. It is so grounded in reality, so human, that it is 100% a film for anyone to watch, even if you've never seen a comic book movie in your life.

I'm gonna start with the criticisms that I've heard about this film - mainly being that it's disturbing, uncomfortable, and too violent, and I don't know which criticism is more ridiculous.

Because while yes, this is a dark, disturbing and uncomfortable film, that's exactly what it's supposed to be. Watching mental health services fail someone is never going to be lighthearted viewing. And yes the film takes the consequences of that failure to the extreme that makes the Joker who he is, but there are still real-world applications to the trauma that Fleck goes through and what it leads him to become.
And the criticisms of violence are absurd. In the UK it's rated a 15, so anyone under 15 shouldn't watch it. But to be honest, I've seen movies 10 times more violent than that. As I saw someone else say, it wasn't even a tenth as violent as Deadpool, but in both cases, the violence added so much to the films. You can't really make a non-violent film about the Joker.

I didn't really know what to expect going into this movie. I'm not extremely familiar with the Joker as a character so I thought that this would be a disadvantage. And while it does make me want to go and watch every movie that the Joker was ever featured in, I feel like having comic book knowledge prior to seeing this movie is an advantage, not a necessity.

The movie is undoubtedly making a statement about mental health, multiple statements. Not only do some of the more horrific events of the film occur after Fleck loses access to services that were previously helping him, but his descent begins because of the way that other people act towards him, rather than anything that he instigates himself. It could be as simple as the writer/director saying that we should be nice to everyone because we never know what someone else is going through, but there's also something to be said for the way that mental illness is viewed in society. And while this review is not the place to go too deep into that, there's a line in the film that roughly says 'the worst thing about having a mental illness is that everyone expects you to act like you don't', and that's an incredibly interesting thing to think about.

The way the film is written and directed is great. It's clear that the writer/director took this well-known character, and found a way to have free reign over the character while also keeping in the movie a lot of things that make the character recognisable - even without the clown make-up.
But it's also extremely realistic. The way Fleck speaks, the way the people around him react, there's nothing that feels unfounded or out of place. I've said this already, but it's incredibly grounded - so much so that it feels out of place if it's compared to movies in the DCEU (which I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a part of). It feels more like a deep-rooted dark character study than a movie about a comic villain, and I'm pretty sure that that's what the filmmakers were going for.

And then I have to talk about the acting. The supporting cast, Robert De Niro (Murray Franklin), Zazie Beets (Sophie Dumond), Frances Conroy (Penny Fleck) and Brett Cullen (Thomas Wayne), as well as everyone else in the film, were all incredible. But without a doubt this film worked because of Joaquin Phoenix's performance. He was incredible in the role, so much so that he almost became unrecognisable as he took on this character. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an Oscar nomination for his role, and without knowing/seeing whatever other films will be nominated, this is definitely a performance worthy of awards.

Overall, go see this movie. Some people don't like it, others revere it, I personally love it and would definitely encourage anyone who is okay with how uncomfortable and disturbing it is to watch it, because it definitely needs to be watched! And I'd love to see it get some Oscar nominations in the new year!

9/10

Lou