Joker

 The feeling of sympathy for Arthur gradually turns into fear. Joaquin Phoenix (Arthur Fleck in the movie) has done an incredible job in the movie. With Heath Ledger massively increasing the Joker’s fan following and love for the character, it was surely daring of Joaquin to take on this challenge to not disappoint the audience. But no one could have done it better (which is why he also won an Academy Award for Best Actor). It is difficult to determine who played the role better. Heath Ledger did not have to carry the burden of a backstory while playing his character and the past of the joker was just a mystery to the audience during ‘The Dark Knight’. The joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ was a pure devil but Joaquin’s joker shows the character’s human side which was not much explored. Besides Joaquin has a past to carry along with playing his character which changes a lot of things.

Joaquin has surely made the Joker’s laugh memorable. After the movie, his laugh just goes on in your mind.  In fact, Joaquin called perfecting the Joker’s laugh the toughest part of the character. Furthermore, his dance is just an emotion. It is graceful and he feels every move he is doing during his slow dance from his fingertips to his feet. Todd Phillips (Director of the movie) also told that Phoenix sometimes walked off-set during filming because he lost self-control and needed to compose himself.

Robert De Niro plays Murray Franklin-a talk show host who influences Arthur to become a comedian and is also the one who plays an important role in Arthur’s downfall.

Thomas Wayne in the movie is not the very kind and humble type of person as he has been portrayed in the previous films. In fact, he is one of the cheesy, tanned businessmen. Alec Baldwin was initially cast in the role of Thomas Wayne but he dropped due to scheduling conflicts and Brett Cullen took over the role.

As the screen mostly shows Arthur all the time, the movie immerses the spectator in his life. We can experience every bit of his life due to which we feel his struggle with the people around him, his depression, and his strife to become a comedian. At times the film is difficult to watch but at the same time, you just cannot take your eyes off it. The way he laughs which physically hurts him shows how much Joaquin has worked on the character and makes the audience feel his pain even more. The score in the movie is terrifying and depressing at the same time. The emotion of the movie heavily depends on its soundtrack. It makes the movie darker than it already is.  

Throughout 2017 Todd Phillips and Scott Silver wrote joker. The origin story of joker was not defined in the comics. Hence Phillips and Silver were given considerable creative freedom and pushed each other every day to come up with something totally insane. With all this said, there are some things the movie couldn’t get right. The narrator of the movie, Arthur Fleck who himself suffers from psychological disorders, is unreliable. There are parts of the story where the audience is just left in ambiguity to decide what is real and what is his imagination. 

With the Joker 2 rumored to come, we can expect some things to get clarified. The end of the movie is great until you realize that it wasn’t the end. The scene after that though good was an extra one. It feels like Todd Phillips was confused between the two endings so he just added both of them. The movie has been heavily inspired by The Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy and it just constantly reminded me of those movies which is why the originality of The joker somehow feels missing. But ultimately ‘Everything is a copy, of a copy, of a copy’ (Fight Club reference).