Joker combines a traditional look with a contemporary message

An awful lot has been written about Joker and, to my mind, most of it is pointless and largely irrelevant. Having seen it – which I think gives me an advantage over some commentators – it is not a training film for incels, nor is it horrendously violent. 

There are, I think, half a dozen killings in the film only one of which would be described as graphic. Certainly, I am more relaxed about the violence in Joker than I am in, for example, about the consequence-free carnage of the most recent Rambo films or Gerard Butler’s Fallen trilogy. 

For me, Joker is a flawed, ambitious but largely successful movie which also happens to highlight all that is wrong with the current state of the film industry. This film should have been able to be greenlit on the merits of its own story, but instead the only way it can get made is by classing it as a ‘standalone non-canon' superhero movie. What nonsense. 

There is simply no need narratively for the Batman connection. The Wayne family are little more than marginalia. Gotham City here is plainly 1970s New York, specifically the moral abyss around Eighth Avenue.  Cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s putrid colour palette gives the film a traditional look with a contemporary feel. 

It’s a film that owes more to Martin Scorsese’s cinematic universe than the DC Universe. It has its origins in those powerful Seventies stories of urban alienation such as King of Comedy (1981) or Taxi Driver (1976), also Network (976) to an extent, as well as lesser-known films like WUSA (1970). 

It’s a powerful narrative. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a deeply troubled man whose mental health is gradually disintegrating. He works as a clown for hire for a promotions agency and slowly but surely approaches the brink of collapse. His only hope is as an aspiring stand-up and being discovered by late night talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert de Niro). When all of this falls apart it leads to a killing spree, an orgy of rioting, and Arthur becoming a totemic leader of the mob. 

One of the problems with Joker, for me, is that director Todd Phillips doesn’t seem to know what he wants to say. It is not a well organised film though, to be fair, it does make great use of the unreliable narrator. 

The shining light here is Phoenix who does a tremendous job selling the story. The performance teeters alarmingly on the edge of hysteria but he is also brave enough to be quiet. The use of silence and stillness is compelling and makes Arthur’s emotional disintegration palpable. 

It strikes me that there is a point to be made here about the perils of dismissing the marginalised in our society. I couldn’t help but recall a recent trip to San Francisco where scores of homeless and/or mentally ill people have been abandoned to the streets; the same streets that contain the headquarters of global corporations like Uber.  

There must be a reckoning for that at some stage, you need only look at the schismatic behaviour here and in the US. Although Phillips touches briefly on this his film lacks the courage to point any fingers. 

Instead of indicting society Joker is dressed up as a superhero movie and rather than make a serious point its main concern seems to be setting up a sequel. Given the potential of much of this film that’s rather a shame.