Movie Review: Joker (2019)

Stars: 1 out of 5

Pros: Acting

Cons: Everything else

The Bottom Line:

A painful drama

Good acting can’t save movie

Avoid at all costs

Sorry, but I Have No Sympathy for the Devil

I had no intention of watching Joker.  I’m lukewarm at best when it comes to Batman in general, and I suspected this movie was going to be too dark for my tastes.  However, a couple of friends really wanted to watch it, so I went along with it.  None of us enjoyed it.

This isn’t the Joker origin story I was familiar with.  Instead, we follow Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a middle aged man with a sorry life made worse by some mental health issues he is trying to address.  However, his life is about to get worse for him, and he will face his breaking point.  What will he do?

Before we get into what went very, very wrong with this movie, I will talk about what did work.  The acting was great.  This had to be a hard role for Joaquin Phoenix, but he was fantastic in it.  Likewise, the rest of the cast, love them or hate them, was wonderfully cast.

So, what went wrong?  Pretty much everything else.

Let’s start with the story.  If you are expecting any superhero action, look elsewhere.  Despite the fact that Joker and the Wayne family are in the movie, this is a drama.  A depressing drama.  Even worse, they had made their point about Arthur’s life by the half way point, but they just kept driving it home.  That includes some scenes that were so cringe inducing as to not be remotely enjoyable.

Then there’s Arthur’s dancing.  In a movie that was already too slowly paced to be enjoyable, we get scenes of Arthur dancing around.  Not to mention his uncontrollable laugh.

Take the R rating seriously.  There are some seriously disturbing scenes in this movie – yes violence – but a few other images that they kept repeating.

Honestly, that right there is enough for me to give the movie one star and move on, but the more I have thought about this movie, the more it has bothered me.  Especially considering how popular the movie has been.  That issue has to do with the movie’s theme, and I will have minor spoilers ahead.

More than being a superhero movie, this movie is an anti-bullying public service announcement.  The entire point is to understand what makes Arthur behave the way he does and turn into The Joker.  So when he does act out, we are supposed to understand him.  Basically, the movie is justifying his actions, turning him into the anti-hero if not the hero instead of the villain.  There is one possibly moment where his actions might be justified, but given everything else he does, I am hesitant to even say that.  And it is a very minor point in the movie.  Instead, his actions are horrible.

But he inspires others.  The masses form a crusade based on his behavior, and he is seen as a hero by the end of the movie.  There is nothing heroic about any of his behavior, and the fact that others would look up to him is sickening.

We watched this movie in late 2021, I couldn’t help but view it in the lens of the last couple of years.  The movie came out in 2019, and it almost seemed to be prophetic.  You have someone behaving poorly, but people using that behavior to inspire them to act out, riot, and loot.  I’m not saying that Arthur was treated well or fairly in the movie.  He is a victim.  But that doesn’t excuse any of his behavior, and that behavior makes him anything but a villain.  And the behavior of the crowds?  Completely unacceptable.  Maybe it’s viewing this movie looking back at what we’ve seen play out in our country in 2020 and 2021 that made it even less appealing.  And I can’t help but wonder how much the movie influenced that behavior, either consciously or subconsciously.

I’ll admit, it hit a little too close to home to me as well based on some of my behavior in the last few weeks before I watched it.  No, I didn’t go to any of these extremes, but I was lashing out at people I would consider friends because I was frustrated.  So this kind of behavior is easy to give in to, but it needs to be treated as the evil it is rather than presented sympathetically.

Usually, when I don’t like something, I can still find someone who might enjoy it more than I did.  With Joker, I can’t do that at all.  This is a movie to be avoided at all cost.  There is nothing redeeming or entertaining about it, and its message is toxic.