Joker (2019)

The film’s title is Joker, but if you’re expecting a supervillain origin story, you’ll arrive at the wrong destination. Joker is a tragedy about a man named Arthur Fleck who is rejected by every corner of society and breaks down in the process. The links to the comics are minimised; it sits far closer to the social dramas of Scorsese’s 1970s–80s New York. My rating is ★4.0.

What it’s about — A Man Breaking Down

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is an aspiring comedian who lives with his mother. He has a neurological condition that causes uncontrollable laughter in stressful situations. He loses his job, is abused by people around him, and everything he held dear disappears — as Arthur transforms into the figure of “The Joker.” Set in Gotham City in 1981, the film is steeped in the atmosphere of socioeconomic inequality and societal disintegration.

Direction — A Homage to Scorsese

Todd Phillips structured this film as a homage to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy: the city’s garbage and neon lights, the close-to-first-person viewpoint of the isolated protagonist. The sequence in which Arthur descends a staircase while dancing is one of the most memorable sequences in recent cinema as a depiction of transformation. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s cello score determines the emotional register of the entire film.

Performance — Joaquin Phoenix Living It in His Body

Joaquin Phoenix lost 23 kilograms for this role, and that physical sacrifice connects directly to Arthur’s psychological fragility. Phoenix fully inhabits the contradiction of a character who laughs when he should cry and cries when he should laugh. The Academy Award for Best Actor was an inevitable outcome. Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin, in limited screen time, makes a strong impression.

What the film says — A Tragedy Made by Society

This film is a question about how society treats its most vulnerable. The welfare cuts, the failures of the healthcare system, the wealth gap, the media’s patterns of consumption — together they made Arthur. The film does not intend sympathy or glorification of the Joker, but it makes his becoming understandable. That understandability is what makes the film both uncomfortable and powerful.

Ratings & reception

IMDb score is 8.3. Rotten Tomatoes freshness is 68% — a film where critical and audience reactions diverge sharply. It won the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion, and Joaquin Phoenix took Best Actor at virtually every awards ceremony including the Academy Awards. There was also significant controversy over concerns about social violence.

What doesn’t work

Viewers expecting the comics’ Joker may be disappointed. There is also ambiguity about whether Arthur is actually the Joker or whether what unfolds is a delusion, which leaves some viewers unsatisfied. The violent scenes in the back half draw many reactions of discomfort. The criticism raised at the time of release — that the film grants excessive sympathy to a violent figure — was strong, with concern that a narrative in which a social failure becomes an icon through violence could encourage real-world violence. That point remains contested. The riot sequences inside the film have a certain logical leap, and the explanation of how Arthur’s actions become a social phenomenon so quickly is insufficient. The Gotham setting is functionally identical to 1980s New York, making the DC universe connection feel unnecessary.

Verdict

A film that will endure in cinema history for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance alone. It pulls unexpected depth of social drama out of a superhero film, and it stays with you for a long time after watching. What you feel toward Arthur Fleck — whether it is sympathy, fear, or anger — is hard to clearly sort out. That’s the film’s strength. If it were simply a villain origin story, that confusion wouldn’t arise. The film’s balance in making Arthur understandable while simultaneously showing that his choices cannot be justified is more precise than you would expect. The Venice Golden Lion and the string of Best Actor awards are not empty praise — you can verify that for yourself. For many viewers, this will be the film that made them first take Joaquin Phoenix seriously as an actor.

Recommended for

• Those who want to experience Joaquin Phoenix’s extreme performance
• Viewers who want social-critical drama rather than villain backstory
• Anyone who wants to watch it as an independent film, separate from DC comics