Reviews

Not Laughing Now: Gritty Joker Story One of 2019's Best Pictures

Editor Austin Kent

Joker, directed by Todd Phillips and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro and Zazie Beetz, follows the story of Arthur Fleck, a clown for hire who suffers from extreme mental illnesses, and shows his rapid descent into all out maddening chaos that leads him to become the Joker.

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie going in. We really weren’t shown a whole lot trailer-wise, so going in my expectations were reasonably low. But man, was I in for a surprise.

This movie is a masterpiece, I'm just going to come out and say it. It was so masterfully well made, it had completely caught me off guard. Lawrence Sher, the films cinematographer, made every shot looked like a painting, which is a very rare ability to have. You can tell while filming this movie, Sher didn't rush anything. He put time into the shots, and the payoff was incredible.

Let’s start with the man himself, Mr. Phoenix: wow. What a performance. If he doesn't wind up with an Oscar nomination, I will be genuinely surprised. His performance was something you’d only see on a blue moon, he killed it as the clown prince of crime.

Everyone was predicting on whether or not his performance would be better or worse than Heath Ledgers. After watching this film, I can proudly say that his performance is right on par with Ledgers infamous performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight Rises.

This movie leans heavily into a character that is clearly downtrodden by life and you do feel sympathy for him because it shows you that life hasn't been pleasant to him, yet you can’t relate to him due to his extreme mental debilities, which is something Joaquin was going for. That can be dangerous, it has the potential to get a little too sappy, like the film could be asking for too much sympathy, for you to feel constantly sorry for him.

But with Phoenix, he treads this line amazingly. You do at some points feel “man, i'm sorry for this guy cause his life is so awful”, but you can see this brewing darkness in his eyes, where you no longer feel sorry for this man… you begin to feel scared of him. It’s a very raw and realistic take of how someone in Arthur’s position could become someone like the Joker.

Just when you think there couldn't be any other “Joker laugh”, Phoenix surprises with something that feels, sounds, and looks physically painful to go through. He laughs compulsively, and when he laughs, you can hear that his throat catches, he starts to cough and hold his chest, like laughing this hard physically hurts him; and I thought that was absolutely brilliant.

This film is really well shot. The cinematography, the color palettes used, the lighting, all made this a gorgeous film to look at. It doesn't even feel like a comic book movie: it feels more like a drama, which it is. I wouldn't exactly call it a thriller, even though there are aspects that could call it a thriller. This is much more of a character study than anything, and I loved all of it.

As far as negatives, this movie is heavily and obviously inspired by two Martin Scorsese films, as he was the producer for the film: Taxi Driver, and King of Comedy (mostly Taxi Driver). This film has very obvious callbacks,direct visual nods to it, and they even cast Robert De Niro, which I don’t think was an accident. It’s not like this movie doesn't feel like its own thing, it definitely is, I just think it was a little too obvious is all.

All in all, I absolutely loved this movie, and I cannot wait to see it again.

Joker is in theaters now.