Joker: A Flat & Underwhelming Origin Story

One of the most anticipated films of the year, Joker fails on its promises as Joaquin Phoenix tries to salvage the gritty script into something more than a forgetful superhero-esque origin story.

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Before its release, Todd Phillips' Joker gained a lot of traction in film festivals, with critics, and the masses as everyone thought fondly on Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises and Heath Ledger's performance as the crazy clown. This instantly set the bar high, so as more and more positive reviews (and standing ovations) were added to Joker's belt, the anticipation grew to a fever-level, which may be the biggest mistake for this gritty & dark reimagining. In no way can the film be considered 'bad', yet it's hard to see at what point it can be considered as revolutionary or as the perfect film.

The film follows Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a nobody who lives with his mother (Frances Conroy) in a dingy apartment as he works for pennies as a clown and 'entertainer'. Struggling with mental illness, Arthur draws the audience's sympathy as we see him sick and broke, unable to defend himself from bullies such as Gotham's thugs, his coworkers, and his stereotypical boss. This creates an internal wall for Fleck as he aspires to become a comedian just like his hero, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), a TV host which Fleck fantasises about meeting. Not only does his illness affect him mentally, but also physically as he randomly gets into fits of uncontrollable laughter, shunning him further and further away from a society that he wishes he could make smile. Fleck's life is a misery which is only made worse by his affliction but, after being given a gun, he finds out that he is capable of things outside the realm of comedy.

From an outside perspective, Joker's plot looks tantalising and exciting, finally able to view his true plunge into insanity; unlike previous tellings of the villains rise to infamy (away with all that nonsensical vat of acid malarkey). In reality, Joker's script is filled with empty promises. Throughout its 2 hour run-time, the film introduces a few major plot lines which, at their introduction, seem to be relevant and clearly carry some weight to them yet, after each of their climaxes, they fail to bring any impact into the viewer. Whether this is Fleck's addiction to pills, his relationship with Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz), or one of the various killings during the story; each one simply fizzles out as the film quickly moves on to the next scene, never really leaving room for the audience to breath and actually take in Fleck's depressing reality.

While the film's narrative leaves much to be desired, each scene is populated with beautiful set designs, stunning costumes, incredible cinematography, and above all, a breathtaking soundtrack which fills in the blanks for the empty script. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir sets the tone within Joker, trying his hardest to progress the films emotionality, sometimes overcoming the visuals as the music speaks more of sadness and anger than any shot in the film ever could. At moments, the soundtrack outshines everything else in the film which further cements the lackluster attempt at showing Arthur's internal moral battles.

It's clear that Todd Phillips drew heavy inspiration from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, as echoes of each can be seen and heard across the film. What is unfortunate is that Phillips uses a lack of subtlety when paraphrasing Scorsese's work, even going as far as casting De Niro (who stared in both films) as Fleck's role model host. A heavy influence can be seen in the script which, after noticing the similarities, can only be seen as a poor mesh of the two; picking out aspects from both which eventually resulted in an old collage only with a new coat of paint.

As it comes to its 'final' climax, the film decides to end multiple times before eventually deciding on what cliffhanger to leave us on. Each time the film feels like it's ready to roll the credits, it reduces it's own impact by giving the audience too many peaks which in turn, makes the final series of shots a tad empty and disappointing. That said, the last 10 minutes of the movie does a good job capitalising on the audience's collective knowledge of Batman's arch-enemy, embracing an ending that we all knew was coming and turning it into a visual whirlwind. Yet, the fact that Fleck was obviously going to become the Joker by the end of the film, drastically reduces the effectiveness of the final scene.

Where the film fails at portraying mental illness, depression, and an anger that could turn any sane person to violence; Joaquin Phoenix picks up the slack with his foreseeable Oscar-winning performance. His portrayal of Joker is truly a work of art as he somehow manages to keep the film from flopping; whether it's the chemistry he brings to the screen or his non-verbal communication to the audience, he has it all. Something that Phoenix is unable to cover up is the emptiness of the film; a major problem that may currently be overlooked but will eventually lead to Joker's memory fading away as just another attempt that simply fell short of the mark.