Joker: Folie à Deux

This movie routinely confounds expectations. Usually, that’s a recipe for something interesting, and in this case I think that mostly works out here—although it is plain why some viewers might not have been particularly enchanted with this result. The execution of this flick's fantasy conceit is uneven; some of the songs are almost apologetic intrusions into a standard narrative, while others come onto the screen as full-blown set pieces à la traditional musicals. That conveys the sense that the filmmakers really didn’t know what to do with their ideas, or at the very least that they weren’t convinced of their own concept. You have to wonder, then, how such a concept was likely to go over with viewers. At least the performances are good; both Phoenix and Gaga acquit themselves well in their roles, although one suspects that the overall experience might have been better if his character had been more the dynamic Joker and less the relatively passive Arthur Fleck. In the end, this is a different, and a mostly welcome, odd spin on the comic book genre—not awful by any means, engaging throughout (I was never bored through the running time), and at least somewhat creative and ambitious, though perhaps not really all that necessary in the final analysis. If you’re going to take the stage, you should open with a strong joke, then finish with something equally good. This movie mini franchise got the first half of that right, but offers a closer that’s good for a chuckle, not a roaring mic drop.

Joker

The next evolution in the comic book movie. From Burton to Nolan to, now, Todd Phillips, there is a direct line of development in these Gotham-based stories, from pure fantasy to realistically plausible to all too possible--very little in this origin story seems out of the question or impossible or, really, in any way not reflective of the reality that exists right around us now. Truth be told, I've always been drawn more to the DC outings than the Marvel universe, largely because the former have seemed--certainly since Batman Begins--a little more grown up and serious. Marvel is fun, but a little childish; its impact lasts not much further than the time you spend watching its films. Here, the viewer is invited to think much more about Joaquin Phoenix's Joker--how he comes to be the psychopath everyone has come to know and love (?), and the world in which he commits his crimes (or is it, exacts his revenge?), and maybe, just maybe, what it means for you and me. After all, monsters don't fall out of a clear blue sky; they're made. And it might be a good idea for us to remember, when we choose to make monsters, that it's possible that all their fury and resentment can not be held back forever, that it will not just dissipate outside the walls we build around us--it might just breach that wall, and then it's duck and cover for any in its way.