It takes only a few minutes for Joker to spell out the closest thing this movie has to a point.
"Is it just me," Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) asks, "or are things getting really crazy out there?"
Even this early in the film, we already know it's not just Arthur. The Gotham City he inhabits is literally lined with trash, thanks to a garbage strike, which in turn has brought out the "super rats." Among the city's human citizens, wanton violence is the order of the day; the very first scene shows Arthur getting jumped by a group of teenagers for shits and giggles.
Arthur's personal life is no less hectic. He's struggling with an undefined mental illness and a condition that causes him to break out in uncontrollable laughter. (Yes, this is one of those stories that paints people with mental health issues as violent, despite the fact that they're more likely to be the victims of violence.) He's barely scraping by at his clown-for-hire job, while trying to break into the merciless world of standup comedy. And when he's not dealing with all of that, he's taking care of his frail and lonely mother.
To the extent that Joker feels unique, it's thanks to Joaquin Phoenix.
He's on the brink as it is, and it's a foregone conclusion that a bit of bad luck will finally push him over the edge. The film is called Joker, after all, not Arthur, and in that regard, it delivers. You will, as promised, get to witness the devolution of a troubled man into a full-fledged supervillain. You just may not get much more out of it. Or at least, I didn't.
To the extent that Joker feels unique, it's thanks to Joaquin Phoenix — and in particular, his way of moving as Arthur, which is at once graceful and grotesque. Arthur never feels more wounded, more powerful, more menacing, or more fully realized than when he is dancing by himself, which is a blessing since there are many, many scenes of Arthur dancing by himself.
Otherwise, Joker tends toward the tedium that comes with taking big, familiar concepts and smothering them under layers upon layers of unearned self-seriousness. Director and co-writer (with Scott Silver) Todd Phillips knows how to shoot a pretty picture — one painstakingly modeled after the '70s films it's aping, like The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver — but doesn't seem to have much of anything to say about what he's decided to show us.
So we see, for instance, "anti-rich" riots and protests around Gotham City (to Joker, they're the same thing), but depicted in such broad strokes as to be rendered completely meaningless. Who are these people? What do they hope to achieve? Are their grievances legitimate, or are they just being jerks? Joker not only fails to ask these questions, it doesn't even seem capable of imagining them.
Image: Warner Bros.
The same goes for its lead. Joker's sole narrative mission is detailing how Arthur becomes the Joker; there are no subplots or side characters significant enough to distract from this focus. Yet for all the new facts the film serves up about him (some of which, annoyingly, are delivered with an "... or is he?" smirk), it offers little insight into his psychology or his personality or his soul. If it's difficult to muster much sympathy for him, it's also hard to work up the energy to be properly disturbed by him.
On the rare occasion this film does find itself in danger of making an actual point or taking an actual risk, Joker tends to pull back. The clearest read of the film is as a power fantasy of self-actualizing by giving into fury instead of trying to fight it. Try to get any more specific than that, though — perhaps by stopping to wonder who that rage should be directed at, or what might be accomplished through it — and Joker demurs.
The result of these creative decisions is a Joker that feels toothless.
Likewise, some of Arthur's most horrific deeds are only implied, not shown, all the better to have it both ways. Do you like the idea of Arthur committing a particular disgusting crime? Great! You can assume he did, and give Joker credit for being edgy enough to go there. Would you like him more if he didn't? Well, you're in luck, because there's no proof that he actually went through with it.
It is likely that Joker would have been a far more alienating and upsetting experience if Phillips had chosen to confirm some of those particulars. It is also probably the case that Joker could only gamble so much, given that it's an expensive blockbuster designed to appeal to a broad audience — one that would bring with them their own associations with the character, and could therefore project whatever they wanted to see in the movie, for better or for worse.
The result of these creative decisions, however, is that whatever power Joker, as a pop culture icon, might wield, Joker, as a movie, feels toothless. It's a teenager making obscene gestures, but only when the teacher's back is turned. It's an old man yelling at a cloud because he knows the cloud can't yell back. It's a reply guy who hides behind the devil's advocate to voice all his most obnoxious opinions without actually owning them.
Perhaps that's just as well. It's not as if our world is lacking in encouragements and excuses for asshats to act out. But by the time the fully formed Joker started whining to a captive audience that "everybody is awful, and nobody's civil anymore," the only thing I could think was: Is that it?
