Papp Fruzsina - Joker (2019) - Review

 For the Joker trailer, please click here.

Let’s Eat the Rich: Anti-Capitalist Tale or a New Origin Story?

In the last more than ten years, superhero movies have been the centre of Hollywood, and even though the most popular franchise have come to a conclusion, there are still movies that are interested in the trajectories these familiar characters can tell. And they are popular, even if the character has been adapted to the big screens several times. Fans of the genre are aware of the usual tropes and traditional storylines, and even with most character’s origins and background, even with elements that have not been covered by the numerous adaptations before. Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019) follows Arthur Fleck going down the mental spiral and ending up being Joker that the audience have known from any Batman movie or comic book they have ever encountered.

Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises introduced Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning The Joker that would have redefined the actor’s career, had he not died prematurely. That film presented the character as a stray dog, running after cars, not sure what he would do with it had he caught them, or more precisely as a man “who just wanna watch the world burn”. The film did not really give any plausible backstory, in fact, Ledger’s interpretation provided several different backstories, ensuring the audience that none of those were true. A few years ago, the much debated Suicide Squad presented the audience with Jared Leto’s The Joker, who was more of a gangster and weapon-mogul than a pointless bandit just going around and firing shots left and right just for the fun of it. Meanwhile, the fans of the small screen were also offered an interpretation of the character, as in the series Gotham, the Joker is more of a concept than an actual human being, and I think Phillip’s Joker is similar to that idea, even though the film can be read in several different ways.

Phillip’s Joker focuses not on the supervillain, the bad guy of Batman movies, but on the process of how the character becomes the character we all know as the arch-nemesis of Batman. Arthur Fleck is a man, living with his mother, struggling with chronic depression and a neurological condition that causes him to burst out in uncontrollable laughter whenever he is stressed or uncomfortable. Due to his conditions, he cannot get any job that would be less humiliating than dressing as a clown and spinning advertisements on the street. He cannot get over his crush he has developed on his neighbour, or have a career as a comedian he has been longing for. The city management even makes it impossible for him to continue his treatment with a therapist. His mother told him that a rich businessman, the father of the to-be-Batman Bruce Wayne, is his real father, but the man refuses to even talk to him and tells him that his mother is and has always been mad. Fleck’s entire character is positioned to convey one message and one message only: eat the rich. Capitalism is bad and leaves the vulnerable exposed, without help.

Fleck murders three young, wealthy men on the metro, after which he is on the wanted list for the GCPD (Gotham City Police Department), but he is also a symbol for the anti-capitalist movement that starts in the city. After he decides to embrace his Joker alter ego, the film ends with an anarchic scene, with the city engulfed by fire, riots, mobs, and violence. Yet, the film is still not a traditional action-packed superhero movie, it still remains a drama about mental illnesses taking over Fleck’s mind. It does not show a healthy person going down a rabbit hole, only an already broken man becoming incorrigibly damaged.

Throughout the film, the audience is presented with a reality Fleck convinces himself of: a reality, in which he is a shining comedian in a relation of requited love with the neighbour lady in. And when he finds himself in the middle of a revolution, he is the celebrated symbol that triggered an uprising against the police department and elite of Gotham. However, it is not obvious whether the events of the anarchy indeed happened, or it was just another fantasy of  Fleck, a fantasy of being in the position of. The closing sequence suggests that Fleck is in Arkham, a psychiatric hospital in the DC universe, and as someone so mentally unstable, Fleck, becomes an unreliable protagonist of the story. The ending justifies reading the film as a prolonged fever dream of Fleck. It is also supported by the riot sequence: Fleck, in his Joker persona, puts blood on his face and climbs on a car while he is celebrated by the masses. Even if he is seen as symbol for anti-capitalism, this image seems far-fetched, more of a dream: if he cannot be a celebrated comedian, maybe he will be celebrated as a criminal.

The reason why a new instalment of Joker could be as successful as Phillip’s film has proven is probably its new take on the character and its detailed representation of mental illnesses. Joker is not an unexplained, reckless anarchist anymore, nor is he a member of the mafia, or a literal clown. He is an ordinary man with a nine-to-five job, who struggles with depression and uncontrollable laughter, conditions which make him a social outcast. And although the film does show him as a misfit, it simultaneously allows the audience to see what it is like to be ill. To be sitting on a bus, entertaining a kid, and then being yelled at by his mother because of being different; not getting a job for the same reason; getting funny looks from your crush because of something you cannot control. Fleck’s journal is a visible representation of what is going on in his head and the film does a pretty good job in conveying that to the audience.

Also, the iconic staircase represents Fleck’s struggle with sanity. While he is taking his pills and is trying to remain sane and keep his life together, he is repeatedly seen making his way up on the stairs really slowly, fighting with each step. But once he embraced his Joker persona, and let his sanity slip, he is seen dancing down the same stairs, running from the cops. Hence, the steps become a spatial representation of his mental condition, further making the film an elaborate depiction of spiralling down depression. The character of Joker is finally given an elaborate reason why he became what cinema-goers already know.

However, the film also shows the Wayne parents killed off in an alley, after the riots have started. They are killed as emblematic figures of the upper-class, the rich people, and capitalism. Fleck’s Joker is already a grown-up while Bruce is still a child, which would mean that previous adaptations of the usual Batman-narrative involving The Joker do not fit this timeline. Reading the ending of the film as the clue that the entire plot was just a daydream from Fleck, sits well with the point made in Gotham that Joker is not one specific person but a concept, fighting anything that is in order and follows conventions or rules. And Fleck can easily daydream about himself becoming the trigger for the anti-capitalist movement. In this way, Joker we see making Batman’s life miserable is not Fleck, but someone else.

As nor the title of the film, neither the way Fleck is addressed in the film include the definite article that is usually part of The Joker’s name. Considering that in Joker the end of the film suggests that it is not Fleck who becomes the supervillain the audience is used to, the lack of the article supports the idea that the film only presents Joker as a concept. Fleck merely appears as the madman who triggers the events, but not the villain Batman would face, and therefore he is not the part of the DC diegesis (the DC universe). This condemns the film to remain a stand-alone film, and not an extended franchise such as either Batman (or comic book) films.

Todd Phillip’s Joker is a stand-alone instalment of a well-known character, previously depicted numerously on both the big screens and in television series. It follows Arthur Fleck’s battle with depression and a mental condition that is further worsened by his day-by-day struggle with capitalism, and not being able to break out from the lower class. Although the film has been labelled as “tedious” and a film that quickly loses the viewers’ interest by Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian, it is still a critically acclaimed fan-favourite, and rightfully so. However, I believe it is a film that does not bow to the usual action-packed traditions of comic book adaptations. It is a detailed, niche, and multi-layered representation of struggling with mental illness and with social injustice. Phoenix’s well-deserved Academy Award only proves that the audiences needed a new take on a character they have already know, and in many cases, love.