Review: Joker
There are concepts. There are jokes. As joker puts it, you may not get it all the time. The latest movie made by Todd Philips, based on the much celebrated, above-mentioned DC character, is one such affair.
The movie tells the story of a struggling, failing, aspiring comedian, Arthur Fleck, who lives with his mother and does party clown acts for a living. Just as the city of Gotham, where he lives, is falling apart with several social impediments, Arthur's life and mental state is falling apart too. The only person with whom he could open up or the only one who would care to listen to him, is the lady working with the social services. He gets attacked, mocked at and looked down by people in the streets and colleagues. As the gulf between the rich and poor gets widened, so does the tension among the people. Arthur's mother believes that only Thomas Wayne, the wealthiest of Gotham, could save them and the city, as he runs for the mayoral position and claims himself as the city's final hope for a survival. Arthur is not as fond as his mother about the man but soon he discovers a connection between the two of them as the movie gets ready to take a wild ride to the other side of sanity.
In many ways, as much as the movie is classified as dark, it speaks much about the harsh realities happening in the day light in our society. It would not be a surprise to me if people could relate to Arthur is one way or another. The man is a symbol of our ever-growing highly frustrated, alarmingly feeble minds of the present generation. The film tries to state that it is not the person but the circumstances he is thrown into gets to decide, if one is a villain or a hero. The society hands him the weapon and would later brand him as an enemy, just to take his place or replace him. Also, I found it very interesting, how the film tried to show us that, just like comedy is subjective, being a good guy or an evil one is subjective as well, and both comes from the same source, or at least it seems so. While Joker and Wayne are the two ends of a social spectrum, it is the people who are thrown into the chaos and are forced to take a side with their respective icons, who are heroes or saviours to their respective set of supporters.
Though, I would not call it a masterpiece, the film ticks off a lot of boxes for me, the biggest of them all is the phenomenal performance of Joaquin Phoenix. He literally waltzed through the character taking in all of the intricacies associated with it. I found it satisfying, for the people to finally acknowledge his skillful acting talent, which was more or less overlooked because of the less glamorous or hyped characters, he has been nailing to perfection since a very long time. The second tick for me was the cinematography. Lawrence Sher did an astounding job in capturing and presenting the dark tone of Gotham city which is at the brink of exploding to madness. Though, I felt the screenplay was let to be loose at some points, I would give it to the freedom to creativity.
Two questions which remained in my mind after finishing the movie were, why is it hyped and why is it slated? Certainly neither a masterpiece nor a junk, the film deserves it's own space in certainly at the better side of craftsmanship and filmmaking. Maybe, as Arthur stated, people won't get it.
P.S: What's with the 11:10 clocks though!? 🤔
The movie tells the story of a struggling, failing, aspiring comedian, Arthur Fleck, who lives with his mother and does party clown acts for a living. Just as the city of Gotham, where he lives, is falling apart with several social impediments, Arthur's life and mental state is falling apart too. The only person with whom he could open up or the only one who would care to listen to him, is the lady working with the social services. He gets attacked, mocked at and looked down by people in the streets and colleagues. As the gulf between the rich and poor gets widened, so does the tension among the people. Arthur's mother believes that only Thomas Wayne, the wealthiest of Gotham, could save them and the city, as he runs for the mayoral position and claims himself as the city's final hope for a survival. Arthur is not as fond as his mother about the man but soon he discovers a connection between the two of them as the movie gets ready to take a wild ride to the other side of sanity.
In many ways, as much as the movie is classified as dark, it speaks much about the harsh realities happening in the day light in our society. It would not be a surprise to me if people could relate to Arthur is one way or another. The man is a symbol of our ever-growing highly frustrated, alarmingly feeble minds of the present generation. The film tries to state that it is not the person but the circumstances he is thrown into gets to decide, if one is a villain or a hero. The society hands him the weapon and would later brand him as an enemy, just to take his place or replace him. Also, I found it very interesting, how the film tried to show us that, just like comedy is subjective, being a good guy or an evil one is subjective as well, and both comes from the same source, or at least it seems so. While Joker and Wayne are the two ends of a social spectrum, it is the people who are thrown into the chaos and are forced to take a side with their respective icons, who are heroes or saviours to their respective set of supporters.
Though, I would not call it a masterpiece, the film ticks off a lot of boxes for me, the biggest of them all is the phenomenal performance of Joaquin Phoenix. He literally waltzed through the character taking in all of the intricacies associated with it. I found it satisfying, for the people to finally acknowledge his skillful acting talent, which was more or less overlooked because of the less glamorous or hyped characters, he has been nailing to perfection since a very long time. The second tick for me was the cinematography. Lawrence Sher did an astounding job in capturing and presenting the dark tone of Gotham city which is at the brink of exploding to madness. Though, I felt the screenplay was let to be loose at some points, I would give it to the freedom to creativity.
Two questions which remained in my mind after finishing the movie were, why is it hyped and why is it slated? Certainly neither a masterpiece nor a junk, the film deserves it's own space in certainly at the better side of craftsmanship and filmmaking. Maybe, as Arthur stated, people won't get it.
P.S: What's with the 11:10 clocks though!? 🤔
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