Joker (2019)

You get what you f**king deserve.

THE SUMMARY: A struggling clown-for-hire and aspiring comedian learns the truth that his entire life is a lie, achieves revenge on all who wronged him, and sends Gotham City into chaos in the origin story of Batman’s nemesis. Joker is actually the last movie I saw in theaters before all the corona bullshit hit, and I absolutely loved it at the time. On second watch, it is still a great movie for many reasons, but I enjoyed it a Wicky less. Maybe the shocking murders weren’t as shocking when I knew they were coming. Or maybe I’ve grown even more sensitive to commie propaganda in the 30 months since I first saw it. Probably both.

NO NOMINATOR COMMENTARY: This was a random selection from IMDb’s top-250 list, after the vote was to reject the nominations last week.

THE BEST:

• Joaquin Phoenix is an excellent Joker: I’m no Batman connoisseur - I haven’t seen all the different renditions, and I know many dispute my taste in actually liking the Jared Leto iteration. And of course I say it with no disrespect to Heath Ledger, who I think correctly earns the crown of best Joker of all time. But I wouldn’t rank Joaquin Phoenix’s presentation very far behind, if behind at all. It’s quite an achievement to make a character painfully awkward and weak, turned charismatic and strong. The difference between the meek Arthur Fleck who gets beat up by street kids and the vicious Joker who murders Murray is dramatic, and at all stages believable - a testament to Phoenix’s performance.

  It’s subtle, but the scenes of Arthur struggling to stop laughing are very difficult to achieve convincingly. Acted poorly, these scenes would have been forced and cringe. Acted well, the scenes are genuinely sad and create sympathy for the man who becomes the villain. There’s no way to write those scenes better or not - they’re not about the script. They are pure performance, and Phoenix nails it.

• The murder scenes are shocking: Of course the shock hit me less the second time, which is to be expected. But each killing hits with a surprise that few movies achieve: the bus encounter (though that was Defensively, Susan™, at least the first two - not the third guy who ran away), the mom face-pillow, but especially the murders of Randall in Arthur’s apartment and Murray live on TV.

  The scissor stab is so quick and brutal - paired with the comedy of Arthur comforting Gary and allowing him to go, but Gary still needing help with the door lock, it’s a truly legendary scene.

  The Murray murder is so shocking because leading up to the event, Arthur keeps implying he intends to commit suicide. The movie leads you to expect that’s where it’s going, and instead bang - right through Robert De Niro’s skull. In combination with the ‘you get what you f**king deserve!’ rant leading up to it, it’s well-written and performed, leading the audience to sympathize with what is completely unjustified, cold-blooded murder.

  For a movie to have several murders in sequence, and still find a way to make each one surprising, is impressive. On first watch, there wasn’t a single one I saw obviously coming, with the possible exception of the train encounter. Once Arthur got that gun, you knew someone was going to find the muzzle eventually.

Arthur kills Randall

Joker kills Murray

• The staircase metaphor: This movie is most remembered for the commonly-memed staircase dance, and rightfully so. It’s a great scene. On second watch though, I noticed how significant the symbolism of this staircase actually is. It’s depicted several times prior to the famous downward dance. Arthur struggles up those stairs multiple times on his way home, without scripting, but the obvious body language that says ‘why am I still doing this?’

  He climbs the struggle stairs day after day, either to no effect, or to worsening effect in his life. The hard work of the stair climb never pays off - it’s only dancing into the decline that brings him satisfaction.

  There’s a lot of collapsitarian philosophy presented here. Is it better to keep working up the stairs to negative effect, to keep fighting a losing a battle, or is it better to take the clown pill, literally paint your face, and chuckle your way down the stairs of madness? Arthur makes a very glamourous case for the decline, but I’d still argue it’s not for the better. What is actually achieved? Justice? Even if you think the people Arthur killed deserved it, innocent people get ransacked in the resulting chaos. Prosperity? Hardly - the city gets even more crime-ridden than it was. The state of the city gets measurably worse - it’s just that Arthur and the clown army gain the ability to laugh at it. That’s something, I suppose, but it’s at the expense of those higher values, I’ll still take the struggle stairs.

  Funny murder is still murder. Funny theft is still theft. But as the staircase scene demonstrates, if you’re going to commit yourself to rampant immorality, at least have a good time while you do.

Arthur climbs the struggle stairs

Joker descends into madness

THE WORST:

• The commie propaganda: Maybe the movie doesn’t mean to say that it’s ‘good’ - there’s some debate about what’s intended to be portrayed as justice and morality - but it is crammed full of commie propaganda: the scene with Arthur’s social worker where the program funding gets cut and the conclusion is that nobody cares about those struggling, because the only and best way to care for your fellow man is to pay taxes to government crooks. The implication that Thomas Wayne is inherently villainous because of his wealth. The conclusion that the Wayne Investments employees deserved to die on the train not because they attacked an innocent man, but because they worked in wealth for the wealthy.

  A recurring theme of the movie is that justice is achieved by taking from others, instead of building value yourself, and that’s completely bullshit. As a matter of morality, you don’t have a right to someone else’s property. As a matter of practicality, you won’t achieve prosperity for yourself by siphoning off others. Stop finger-pointing and get to work.

• How old is Joker?: As I mentioned, I’m no expert on the Batman universe and the Batman timeline, but it seems odd to me that Joker in this version of the story would be something like 40 years older than Batman. I suppose for Joker to be a crime boss he doesn’t need to be athletic or strong, and rarely or never is he actually portrayed to be, at least in what I’ve seen. But with this age difference, Joker would be battling Batman from a scooter.

  I do see, however, that in some iterations, Joker is indeed much older than Batman. And it’s also possible that Arthur isn’t supposed to be as old as he looks in this movie to me, so maybe this presentation isn’t as off as it seems.

THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. As dramatically dark as they come, but the commie propaganda removes this video from perfection to me. Still, an incredible performance and a recommended watch.

YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇

Next week: Man on Fire (2004). The vote came back to make one more pick from listener Bobby’s nominations.

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