I didn’t intend to review or write about this movie (Largely because it came out in October, my horror month). However, I’ve heard so much nonsense about this film that I felt an article is needed. To do that means spoilers. So only read beyond this opening is you’ve watched the movie or don’t intend to. If you are just after a review, I’ll provide a quick one for you in the next paragraph before i move on to the various debates this film seems to have inspired on the internet.
This is a gritty neo-noir drama wearing the mask of a comic book franchise. This shouldn’t be shocking to anyone that has seen the first movie. But if you go into it thinking that the end of the previous movie was Arthur Fleck fully becoming the character from the comics, you will be disappointed! Also, this is a musical. There is a purpose to it, but it frankly wasn’t necessary and adds very little. The movie is however well made. Technically this is a good movie. That said, a mix of gritty depressing drama, show tunes and comic books is a meal most people won’t be able to keep down. I’d give it a 6/10, but only recommend it to fans of depressing neo-noir.
Joker Derangement Syndrome
Now, on to the debates those. It’s worth noting 99% of those debates are being spread by people that haven’t seen the film. Much of it is reacting to memes, some of which are horrendously inaccurate or outright lies. It is a bizarre torrent of overreactions and the only comparable reaction in movies is the one for the first movie. This is coming from a different group than the first, but it’s just as wild. Instead of claiming the director made a movie to inspire “Incels”, these people are claiming the director deliberately made a movie to punish fans for liking his last one. Both views are delusional. If only there was a term that applies to two people or groups sharing a common delusion… Hmm…..
I doubt the movie was intended to be politically divisive. Somehow it ended up like that, but perhaps that is more about how society is these days than anything to do with the movie. I try as best as I can not to get into politics on this blog, but it isn’t easy. It gets harder with every year and that just shows how much we really need stories that can bring us together instead of divide us. This wasn’t going to be the movie to do it though. It’s far too easy to project your own fear, anxiety and anger on to this movie. The Joker ultimately represents chaos and that is something we all relate to these days.
Question One – Was Arthur consistent to the first film?
Arthur is a mentally ill, run down, abused man with a low IQ. That was all in the first film. At the conclusion. he has his moment of bloody triumph, but he didn’t magically turn into another person. That doesn’t happen in real life. Arthur has put on a persona and has been encouraged to do this by the public that reacted to his subway killings. They then react to his public execution of the talk show host that mocked him in the same way. But, Arthur got caught. He didn’t plan for an escape.Indeed he originally planned to kill himself, not the host. This is a man pushed too far, not the clown prince of crime.
People reacted to this on air killing. It turned Arthur as “Joker” into an icon. The figurehead of a violent revolution. He revelled in that. But… that fades. After months out of the limelight he’s back to being Arthur. It’s not an unexplained character regression like Han Solo in The Force Awakens. It’s a regression that clearly would have happened. Its also important to note that Arthur is not really a bad person. He’s not cruel, he’s not sadistic, he is not a psychopath. Arthur doesn’t actually crave the chaos, he is a victim of it, A man that snapped in the face of it. When he he is confronted by the damage his Joker persona has done to innocent people, he willingly gives it up. This makes total sense.
Question Two – Was it an FU to the audience?
Perhaps the most unhinged claim about this film is that it was somehow an attack on the fans. The theory goes that Todd Phillips was upset about his risky neo-noir Joker movie making over a billion dollars. Apparently he was so upset by this that he deliberately set out to make the sequel as big a financial disaster as possible. This is quite clearly ridiculous. One could perhaps argue it was an FU to the studio for forcing him to make a sequel (figuratively speaking). But even then, it was an FU because he made a sequel consistent to his own vision, without compromise. He did not deliberately make a bad film or one designed to attack anybody. But he did take a big pay off to make this sequel and we should remember, he didn’t originally intend to do one.
Whether the studios wanted him to make the sequel more of a comic book superhero movie or perhaps even a Bonnie and Clyde type of film is a mystery. Whatever the may have wanted, they signed off on what they got. They gave Phillips carte blanche to do what he saw fit. Indeed he refused help from the studio. Whatever else this movie is, it is one mans vision. The crazy idea that this movie was somehow made to “Own the Chuds” is just as deranged as the idea the first one was meant to inspire “Incels” to do mass shootings. This isn’t some kind of psi-ops. It’s a creative director taking risks. It paid off once, it failed the second time. The odd thing is both sides politically seem to want to read into it that Phillips supports the other side.
Life Imitating Art?
This brings me to the films most interesting phenomenon. In the film, people react to Arthurs actions by putting him on a pedestal. They believe him to be an icon of chaos that will tear down the system. To the establishment he is an existential threat, to the downtrodden, he is a saviour. Yet ultimately he was just a man pushed too far, a victim, broken by the system. Though his antics meant he was now seen, but Arthur the man was more invisible than ever. When his fans discover the truth, they turn on him. At that point , he is truly alone. The enemies he made when he embraced the character of Joker still hate him. His only friends in the world are either traumatized or dead. Where this gets interesting is that the reaction to both Joker films has exactly mirrored the reaction to Arthur in those movies.
The first film generated outrage from the establishment. Specifically, mainstream journalists that thought the film was some kind of anthem for “Incels” that would rise up and engage in mass shootings. There were even metal detectors installed at some cinemas because people took this fear seriously. The reaction from people that felt beaten down by the system though was to see Arthur as some kind of icon. A symbol of standing up against the system. When the sequel came out both sides were no doubt expecting more of the same. But when it turned out this movie wasn’t “sticking it to the man”, those that had so invested in that side of the first were outraged so much they seem determined to see the film fail and Todd Phillips career to be over. Those that hated the first film stayed firm in their stance. The result, a box office bomb.
Good Intentions?
There’s two ways of looking at this. One is that Phillips set out to draw the audience so far in to the movie they could have been in the very universe the film is set. That the audience are reacting to the character of Arthur as if they are in his world and not just watching a movie. If so, there is no two ways about it, this is ingenious. But if not, then Phillips can’t be blamed for how the fans feel about the movie. It is just a somewhat experimental, somewhat arty movie from a director that likes to take risks. Phillips just wanted to make an interesting movie and take people on a journey. He didn’t set out to make a movie for one side of the cultural divide or the other. He just made a movie.
There’s a growing phenomenon with modern movies. All the while they are being criticized by some for being “Too safe”, there are risk taking creative directors that are finding the only way they can get a mainstream platform is to take on a mainstream franchise. The majority of the time this leads to an audience backlash. Franchises are not meant to be artist playpens after all. Instead they have a huge weight of audience expectations. That’s not to say a few risks don’t pay off. Guillermo Del Toro and Christopher Nolan have both proven that you can take risks and bring art to a superhero movie. But for every one of those there is a Josh Trank or Rian Johnson. Sometimes like with Taka Waititi and now Todd Phillips they start out with initial success, but eventually the desire to realize their vision gets in the way of audience expectations.
Keep Repeating: “It’s Just a Movie”
The mistake is to assume these directors set out to ruin things for the fans. That makes little sense. Even though people like Johnson and Waititi are antagonistic to the fans, no one actually sets out to fail. Sometimes there is some form of agenda, but not one of deliberate failure. Often these directors are just wildly inappropriate choices to take on franchise movies. Joker is a little different, since this was not set in an established universe. When Joker was greenlit there was a drive across Hollywood to make “Villain” movies. But Warner never asked for one in the main DC universe (Whose Joker at the time was Jared Leto).
No doubt the studio were not expecting a neo-noir, but it’s not like taking on the 8th part of a 9 part, 50 year franchise story. I say that because a lot of people have chosen to compare this to “The Last Jedi” while ignoring the very different situations. It’s worth noting most people didn’t even want a Joker origin story in the first place. The fact is Phillips had nothing to lose and so he didn’t something no one expected. But it worked and it made over a billion dollars as a result.
The Verdict
This time around, Phillips had everything to lose. Good job he was well paid for the risk, because he crashed and burned. In my view he took a too many risks this time. Making a gritty depressing tragedy and not a comic book superhero movie was already a risk. Making it a musical too… That was too much. Those scenes did serve a purpose. They are an insight into Arthur’s frame of mind. Not just in how he escapes his reality, but in how little imagination he has. A point that really didn’t need hammering into the audience so many times, and in a way that gave them very little to enjoy about it. It wasn’t designed to be an FU to the audience, but it wasn’t made for comic book fans either. It was made for Hollywood cinephiles. People at film school, other directors and possibly, The Oscars.
American directors tend to have a love of musicals. For me a musical is a way to compromise music for the sake of drama and drama for the sake of music. Often it just results in generic mediocrity. But that’s not how most directors feel. For them it is part of their DNA. The Oscars meanwhile love a depressing drama about someone with poor mental health that is mistreated by government organisations. Of course the backlash against the success of the first movie probably negates an Oscar nomination. But still, that is the kind of crowd it was made for. So it’s okay not to like it, but don’t take it personally. It is just a movie and Todd Philips is just a director that takes risk. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.
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