Surely You Jest

It will come as a surprise to no one that Hollywood studios are not above fomenting controversy to promote a film. Whatever hand they had in the controversy over Joker, their task was simplified by it being so easily fomentable nowadays. More on that in a moment.

Arthur Fleck, acted by Joaquin Phoenix, is apparently an alternate version of the Joker in this one-off stand-alone movie, since it is hard to see how to fit him into the timeline of any of the other various Batman movies. Joaquin Phoenix is 45, but even if we generously allow that his Arthur is supposed to be an old-looking 30 he doesn’t fit either Christopher Nolan’s trilogy or Suicide Squad. Joker is set in 1981 (the movies on the marquees in the street shots nail down the year) so Arthur would be too old to be the Joker in The Dark Night; were he the same, the police work by the Gotham detectives in that film who are unable to discover the Joker’s identity would be incredibly shoddy. In Suicide Squad, Arthur necessarily would be a senior citizen by any calculation. So, unless a younger Joker was merely “inspired by” this predecessor, the timelines seem distinct. Bruce Wayne, by the way, appears in Joker only as a child.

In the classic origin story of the Joker, he is disfigured by falling into a vat of toxic chemicals. In Joker the toxic brew is Gotham City itself. Arthur has serious mental health problems including bouts of inappropriate laughter. This is a real thing, as it happens: the pseudobulbar affect. In a grimy, harsh, depressing city that Arthur has trouble navigating under the best of circumstances, his condition prompts people (horrible people, but a lot of people are horrible) to brutalize him. City budget cuts end the help, such as it was, that Arthur was getting from social services, thereby isolating him more. The few apparent bright spots in his life, we soon learn, are his own fantasies, not reality. Arthur lives with his mother, who once had worked for the Waynes, but he learns things about her that shake even this relationship. Arthur works as a clown and tries his hand at stand-up comedy, but neither work out well for him. The turning point comes when he has an unplanned Bernie Goetz moment: in the subway in his clown outfit he shoots three Wall Street types who for some strange reason are being thuggish. (Thuggery by Wall Street types is usually more subtle than that.) To his own surprise he doesn’t feel at all bad about it. Nor do street demonstrators (later rioters) who don clown masks and glorify the unknown vigilante as a crusader against the 1%. Arthur becomes Joker, adopting the name because he was called a “joker” by a talk show host (played by Robert De Niro) who makes fun of his stand-up act on the air.

Back to the controversy: There are complaints in some circles (including a few major media reviewers) that the Joker is a sort of alt-right anti-hero who could inspire emulation. This is an odd way off looking at it. The politics of the movie are, if anything, the opposite of right-wing as the negative review by the leftish The Guardian noted. Arthur himself comes out and says, “I’m not political” in a context where he is being shockingly honest. Nor would anyone want to be Arthur Fleck. The Joker of The Dark Knight has some appeal in a bizarre way; he is a wildly destructive nihilist, but he has given real thought to what he doesn’t believe; he is having fun and he is not actually crazy. Not so Arthur Fleck: a troubled and deeply unhappy man. “All I have are negative thoughts,” he says. He may find some satisfaction striking back excessively at awful people in an awful city where the joke always has been on him, but he is still a deeply unhappy man.

The movie makes references to numerous earlier films right down to occasional camera angles, as most viewers will notice. They add irony without interfering with the flow of the film. Those looking for a standard comic book movie will not find it here. What they will find is fine acting, a good score, and a solid script. Thumbs Up.