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The Joker
****
Dir: Todd Phillips
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro
(15, USA, 2hrs 2mins
The Joker, Batman’s arch enemy gets a pared-down and gritty origin story in this heavily Scorsese-esque drama, brilliantly anchored by a superb Joaquin Phoenix.
Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck a would-be stand-up comedian in 1981 Gotham, a city where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. He’s very much an outsider with a medical condition that causes uncontrollable bouts of laughter at inopportune moments. The system has forgotten him, the medication he’s on isn’t working and he’s on the path to becoming a villain. This is a slow-burn; an unsettling character study free from any superheroics with Phoenix transcendent as Fleck, whom we initially empathise with as a victim of society, until events get darker, the relevance to today’s world ever more pertinent.
Frances Conroy is excellent as the Joker’s mother, Zazie Beetz provides some initial sympathy for the tortured clown and to make the Martin Scorsese influences even more apparent, Robert De Niro appears as a late-night TV talk show host in a mirror of his King of Comedy turn back in 1982.
Todd Phillips’ film is designed to provoke as Fleck starts a revolution in clown make-up. A link with Batman is made, but Bruce Wayne’s father here is an arrogant Trump-like figure rather than the sire of a superhero. It’s a brave attempt to play with expectations with the mysterious Joker, who has no official origin story, Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson went for laughs and Heath Ledger for darkness. This has the Joker as victim, a product of a corrupt society, a gripping drama unafraid to go really dark. Already winning awards at festivals, Phoenix’s out-there performance will no doubt draw deserved Oscar buzz. Send in the clowns.
words Keiron Self
Out October 4