Joker

Our Review

Whatever you expected from a Joker origin movie, Todd Phillips delivered something closer to a 70s character study than a comic book film. Joaquin Phoenix lost an alarming amount of weight to play Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill party clown in a rotting Gotham that is unmistakably New York on the edge of bankruptcy, and his performance is a physical feat: the laugh, the dance, the way his whole body seems held together by bad wiring.

The film wears its influences openly, borrowing its plot skeleton from Taxi Driver and its structure from The King of Comedy, and critics who called it derivative have a point. It also works. The descent is staged with such uncomfortable intimacy that the 2019 panic about the film inspiring real world violence now looks absurd in hindsight; it is a portrait of loneliness and societal rot, not a manual.

It became the first R rated film to cross a billion dollars and won Phoenix an Oscar, and both were earned. It is not a fun watch and it is not trying to be. Our score: 8/10. A grim, committed, unforgettable performance piece.