The Joker gives us Much to Think about but not Much to See

Warner Bros Pictures. Poster

The Joker draws strong comparison to a number of films. Taxi Driver is foremost for me and The King of Comedy to a lesser extent. In Scorsese’s 1976 breakout, Travis Bickle is subsisting on the fringes, and the growing realization of his disenfranchisement tosses the young man over the edge. In keeping, The Joker finds himself looking over the same cliff and definitely adds some juice to his tragedy. Not keeping the rage to himself, Joaquin Phoenix starts a movement, and legions of his ilk are ready to take on the vulgarity and insensitivity of American life. It sounds like a winner. Not quite, so let me begin.

The starting points are different for our antiheroes. At the outset, Travis shows us someone who is definitely out of step, but the chance of landing on his feet seems possible. He has a job, structure and a friend in Peter Boyle who cares.

Arthur Fleck, on the other hand, finds himself in a deep hole before the opening credits have barely left our view. Smacked with a wooden board across his clown face and stomped to the ground by vagrant youths, hope has no place here.

And maybe the Joker’s abrupt introduction to his own downfall is the problem. Conversely, Travis incrementally descends, and as the rabbit hole deepens, maybe we can still see ourselves in his social awkwardness. That is until we can’t, and we are forced to distance our similarities from the iconic outcast. Yes, I’m talking to you.

Still, the Joker graduating to murder after only a few minutes of screen time doesn’t separate the audience from a shared pain. Gotham City is ruthless. It’s crass, uncaring and the underbelly the Joker represents really doesn’t have a place to turn.

Just turn on the TV or scan social media and the overall discourse should look very familiar. Bogged down on a daily basis, we bow our heads to a cut throat capitalist society that levies judgement on any life that doesn’t live up. In the Joker’s case, it’s a retrograde career, an imagined relationship with the girl next door and a shared space with his mother.

An omnipresent and added mouthpiece ups the ante for Arthur, and Robert De Niro gives him the screws as the late night talk show host. An obvious nod to The King of Comedy, this connection is more personal. Murray Franklin publically taunts Arthur’s failed life and career, and a confrontation is inevitable.

But the Franklin commentary that periodically runs in the background provides a disturbing insight into the mentality of the masses. A comedic delivery that is tame, polite and free of risk speaks to a feeble minded electorate and implies an easy disregard for the disconnected underbelly.

So Arthur’s critical loss of access to mental healthcare makes perfect sense in Gotham City and America, and the Oscar winning film is letting us know that the bill must come due. Things don’t get easier when Arthur is dismissed by the man he believed to be his father, and the Joker’s wrath against Thomas Wayne gives birth to Bruce Wayne’s.

Our origin story is revealed and all the profound societal implications means there’s is a lot going on here. We should take note and do what we can to address the message the film is trying to get across. But Joaquin Phoenix dancing around and redundantly hacking out his unhinged laugh didn’t grab me.

In fact, I kept going back to Jeff Bridge’s landlord in The Big Lebowski, and the performance art scene we briefly endured. We got the message about the self serving silliness of such crap so how did the Joker miss the point.

All these look at me and my societal interpretations moments made a mockery. I didn’t really get it and the delivirery of the drama didn't pull me a long.

Best Picture, how did that happen but the best actor accolades does have some merit. I give Phoenix a ton of credit for not looking like a complete idiot, and I will say his dance down the stairs was awesome.

The final crescendo between De Niro and Phoenix is deep and haunting too, but the revealing back and forth couldn’t save the movie. So in the end, Joker gives us much to contemplate but not much to look at.

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