‘All I have are negative thoughts,” quips Arthur Fleck while summing up his repressed and burdened emotions in front of his counsellor. That line in the recently released Joker serves as a compendium of what the entire story is about. A far cry from Tim Burton’s version of the 1989 Batman and perhaps a dark and twisted extension of what the late Heath Ledger or director Christopher Nolan would have imagined. Todd Phillips brings to you a story of a man whom you could have never related to unless you were put in his shoes; and that is what exactly the film achieves. An empathy so profound that it moves the very foundation of what or who the Joker is and what he becomes. A metamorphosis so intense and powerful that it leaves your soul stunned, wanting for more.
Joker is not an action thriller movie. It is a feature film that explores the beginnings of the arch nemesis of the Dark Knight or Batman. Todd Phillips, a director famous for comedies like the Hangover and Due Date, manages to achieve something that no filmmaker has ever done before. The knack to sympathise with a psychotic and unpredictable crazed individual is somewhat of a Martin Scorsese universe nuance, but Todd Phillips draws you into the world that was perhaps envisioned by Scorsese, but perfected by Phillips and keeps you in it until you have had enough.
Joaquin Phoenix gives a performance that is unparalleled and unbelievable. As a down and out of luck individual who is often elbowed and pushed over by society, Phoenix’s character slowly and insidiously embraces the darkness in him and uses it as the light that guides him to some clarity and eventual chaos.
Joaquin was Commodus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, but as Arthur Fleck he has eclipsed his own past accomplishments. He gives a performance that is menacing and yet gut-wrenching, so much so that the pain seen on the screen transcends somehow into your own body. The laughter you hear from the Joker will echo in your subconscious until you make peace with the character’s actions in your head. That is the impact Arthur Fleck creates.
If Jack Nicholson was all laughter and thug life, then Heath Ledger was the unpredictable Lucifer. If Jared Leto was dramatic and cunning then Joaquin Phoenix is all but the three combined. Arthur Fleck aka Joker is a combination and perhaps the culmination of a life that fails to find any glimmer of hope despite trying hard, very hard. The built up of the frustration after society rejects him is the most supreme achievement in this movie. The way the character evolves and the beauty of seeing something so evil being born and the audience loving what he becomes is the quintessential hallmark of this movie. Hailing the birth of something so sinister is somewhat the zenith of this film.
The music of the movie adds yet another layer of cerebral gravity to the saga of the Joker. If Hans Zimmer sent your pulse racing with his staccato inspirational power ballads, then Hildur Guðnadóttir will captivate your breath with her spell-binding yet dark tunes complemented only by the J.S. Bach-style cello-violin allegory. The music of this movie is like a tune you always knew you had heard before, but the character of Joker and Hildur’s rendition of it brought everything together for you to recognise and be moved by it again.
The movie is based in the fictional city of Gotham and does have the Wayne enterprise entrenched in the storyline, but the Joker and his nuisance quotient serenely and strangely overpowers every other facet of this movie. With a performance such as this, it is no surprise that Joaquin Phoenix and the Oscar buzz will go hand in hand. But the remarkable thing about this performance is that at no point does it leave you. It was like watching Phoenix hand-hold you into the crazed universe to introduce you to a man who ran out of choices when he was nice and the only thing he was left with was to embrace chaos and eventually spread it and achieve some method in this madness. A psychological thriller that has perhaps changed the way we see movies and the way we understand mental traumas. A masterpiece!
The author is Consulting Editor and Primetime Anchor with NewsX