Joker

Seen 10/22/19

*Warning Spoilers*

After getting a standing ovation and winning Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, Joker started to piqued my interest. The trailers never really built up excitement for me but it looked like there could be potential. When this movie was announced I was skeptical because I felt like an origin on the Joker was unnecessary. His origin has always kind of been a mystery and that, to me, added to the craziness of the Joker. 

Joaquin Phoenix does an amazing job acting through out the movie. The way portrays the character through his facial expressions was outstanding. However I wasn't surprised by this, he is a great actor in general. 

The movie was shot nicely for the most part. It had a lot of these muted and natural tones which fit for grimness of this movie. I could have done without some of the Dutch angle shots. When shots like that came up it kind of seemed like they were trying too hard to be like "look at our cinematic talent, we aren't your average comic book movie."

When it came down to it however, I really did not enjoy this movie and I think there were 2 main factors to that.

The first factor was the story. There were several things that were too predictable for me. Parts like when Arthur (what Joker goes by for most of the movie) is given a gun and then is spoken to by his boss and is given a warning and then a couple of scenes later you see him working at a children's hospital as a clown entertainer, as soon as that scene started I knew he was going to drop the gun he had and be fired and sure enough that's what happened. Or when there is a reveal that the woman Arthur was seeing turns out to be all in his head. There were several things leading up to that scene that gave some obvious clues that none of what we were seeing was real. Like the first time you see her she has a daughter and then ever time up until the reveal the daughter is never mentioned, it was always about the woman making Arthur feel good about himself. The story also seemed to be very convenient, like bad thing after bad thing would happen. Or things like Arthur's idol and favorite talk show host, having a random clip of Arthur's very first stand up act where he bombs and then invites him to the show. It was so convenient to me that it became unbelievable. 

But I think my biggest problem with the story was how they forcefully shoved the Wayne family in to it. The way they tried to tie the Wayne family to Joker's origin was just unnecessary. There is a scene where Arthur confronts Thomas Wayne because he believes Thomas is his father. He says something along the lines of "look Father don't you see the resemblance?"  (I can't remember what it is word for word but that's the point of it) and I was sitting there in the theater thinking *do you see the resemblance? You guys are like the same age, how could he be your father???*. And then there was a scene at the end that I just couldn't stand. They show for the 100th time Thomas and Martha Wayne being shot in the alley. Like whose story is this, the Joker's or Batman's? If this is Joker's story this scene is unnecessary and just a waste of my time. It was like the makers were thinking "if you don't know The Joker takes place in Batman's universe after we set the movie in Gotham and introduce you to the Wayne's and have a scene where The Joker sees Bruce as a kid, maybe you'll realize it if we show you the parents being killed". Honestly this was really frustrating to watch.

The second factor for not liking this movie was the motivation and circumstances for the Joker becoming Joker. I felt like the movie tried to play on the emotions of people being understanding of those with mental illness. And yes, in the real world, mental illness is a serious topic, many people suffer from it and people who don't have it need to be more understanding and accepting of those who suffer with it. But in this case of the movie I felt like this was a cheap move to make a big part of Joker's origin mental illness. Justifying the Joker's actions of murders and chaos with mental illness  is not ok with me. The circumstances Joker found himself in through out this movie also goes back to my point of convenience. A lot of negative circumstances that push Arthur to the point of becoming Joker all happen in a row that made it so convenient. I just couldn't get on board with it. 

I don't need a reason to feel bad for the villain or a reason to be on their side. I'm a believer that a villain's main purpose (in media, like comics, TV, movies) is to exist to elevate the hero, make you connect to the hero through the struggles they face while having to deal with the problem that the villain presents. Maybe that's my problem with villain origins stories such as this. Because I know where the character goes from here and I am starting from a place of already not being on their side, maybe these villain origin movies just aren’t for me. I have heard a lot of people say they have enjoyed this movie and if you did I'm glad for you. However, I think I would be ok with never seeing this one again.