Review of JOKER: Seriously Sick and Squirmy
October 6, 2019
This became a much anticipated film ever since teasers of Joaquin Phoenix's twisted portrayal of the Crown Prince of Crime hit social media. It premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival last month where it won the Golden Lion award. With the trailers, I can already see how dark, dismal and dirty this film was going to be, and I cannot say that I was excited to see it. However with the early Oscar buzz surrounding Phoenix's performance, this film simply needed to be seen.
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) lived in abject poverty with his sick mother Penny (Frances Conroy) in tumultuous Gotham City. The day he lost his job as a clown, he got harassed by three executive guys in the train and he shot them dead with a gun given to him by a co-worker. His act of violence led Arthur down the road to increasing madness, as it also inspired Gotham's poor to rise up wearing clown masks to protest against the rich. Meanwhile, Arthur was invited to be a guest in the TV show of his favorite comedian Murray Franklin (Robert de Niro), a public appearance that did not bode too well from the get-go.
There is no argument that Joaquin Phoenix completely dedicated himself to this character and transformed completely into this pathetic creature, a victim of an abusive and nasty society. His very body was deformed into a grotesque emaciated form. He projected an aura so negatively charged that it repelled anyone within his presence, including us in the audience. He was supposed to be a clown and comedian, but nothing he said or did was ever funny at all. Even his maniacal laughter was pathological. Phoenix's portrayal reveled in the irony that his character actually gained more self-worth the deeper into violent psychosis he wallowed.
The technical aspects of this Todd Phillips film were undeniably excellent. The cinematography by Lawrence Sher was consistently plunged in a melancholic filter, with camera angles deliberately as manic and off-kilter as the personality of the title character. The musical score of Hildur Guðnadóttir and song choices in the soundtrack (notably "That's Life" and "Send in the Clowns" as sung by Frank Sinatra) enhanced the uneasy mood of the film. The make-up department was also to be commended for completing the ugly and unsettling look of Arthur as Joker. Weaving in billionaire Thomas Wayne into the narrative was a stroke of genius.
However, having said that, I have to confess that I did not like sitting though this harrowing film because of the seriously sick and squirmy feeling it gave me throughout its 122-minute running time. Its form of art was something so unpleasant and disgusting that I would not want to watch it ever again. This was one of those movie experiences that while you recognize it was done well, but it was done so well with such palpable realism that it became totally nauseating and unnerving to the core. This is certainly not for the faint of heart nor for the weak of constitution. This was abominable anarchy on film. 8/10.
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