Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Bill Smotrovich, Sharon Washington, Alfred Rubin Thompson.
Imagine the longest middle finger to be attached to the largest, most muscled, sizeable hand, and then seeing it for all its worth as it is raised up in the face of all, a large moment in which we understand we have been probably taken for a ride; one set of the audience will see it with anguish and fury, feeling the ridicule personally…the other knowing at the end that the joke was on them and revelling in the cinema reveal in which the emotional needs and wounds have been opened and the flesh ripped apart.
It was arguably never the intention to place the film in such a position, but by doing so, by giving Joker: Folie à Deux the chance to be so divisive it actually opens the eyes to the psychological dreams of many, the want to see the anti-hero, the psychotic side of humanity reign supreme, to see it rage, to set fire to the world, and then be satisfied with the results; giving meaning to the inner madness we all feel in a time of insanity.
The drama in the end is not on the large screen but in our own version of what our desires actually are, and whilst we could see the supposed missed opportunity of the court room scene to have The Joker dominate proceedings in the face of answering for his crimes set out in the first film, portraying the type of manic oppression that the audiences came to expect from Heath Ledger’s time in the enigmatic role, what we have instead is the realisation of the broken man, not The Joker, but the wreck of Arthur Fleck; and it is in this that the majesty of physical undoing reign supreme for Joaquin Pheonix.
Whilst the film does suffer for its own folly, the grandness that was set up in the first place, it nevertheless captures and frames with brilliance our expectations, the folly of the madness within us all, Lady Gaga may not have the athletic grace and generosity of recklessness of Margot Robbie in her version of Harley Quinn, but that is the point, instead she offers a glimpse of the push into the world of the criminal as she paints the man she idolises as the saviour, only to be let down by his own admission.
Joaquin Pheonix’s career has been impressive, but in the role of Arthur Fleck the audience is greeted by the fragility of mind, soul, and body, it is damaged, bloodied, it has been beaten by society, and still holds out for greatness, and in the end it is not the Joker that is proclaimed king, but the mirror held up to our own faces which shows the make up smears as we understand that we are the creators of our downfall.
A film of division, which ever way you view it will be how it resonates, and whilst most will be disappointed, in the end it is the joke of our times that is to be heralded.
Ian D. Hall