Todd Phillips
Joker

LA RECENSIONE

[contains mini spoilers]

Every morning in Gotham City when the sun rises, a man wakes up and dies.

Arthur Fleck (a masterful Joaquin Phoenix) is already dead: perpetually depressed, he has a meaningless job, zero social life, no stable company or relationships outside of his mother (crazier than him), lives in a run-down apartment, and has no one who treats him well, not even by accident. Additionally, he suffers from a terrible nervous tic that makes him laugh hysterically in normal situations, making Arthur's discomfort even more difficult to bear. The only thing that gives him hope is the show; comedy is his much-desired goal.

However, when instead of becoming the new George Carlin, you end up being treated like a viral video freak, even that small glimmer of hope closes. The rest is taken care of by the people around Arthur, none of whom show empathy for his disorder, even though he has medical certification, and those men who were once symbols of change and justice now become the executioners, symbols of oppression and the corruption of power.

Amidst the political and personal issues, the protagonist of Joker by Todd Phillips will begin a slow but inexorable descent toward the self-awareness of who he really is; a lonely and abandoned man who just wants to assert himself in front of the entire society that has marginalized him through the neglect of healthcare and the constant competitiveness typical of the most competitive America. It is from this point that the tragedy of a man is exacerbated to the point of becoming a joke; a very macabre joke that "fatally" targets the television host Murray played by Robert De Niro, the image of the charismatic man who, unlike Arthur, has achieved his dream and uses those below him only for his comedic punchlines and ratings (Barbara D'Urso docet).

One gesture, that of the final act, which destroys the good manners imposed by TV; and from that moment chaos ensues for Gotham because the character of the Joker is complete; for it to truly be a Joker film, it's interesting that he only becomes fully realized in the last ten intense minutes, leaving us with an Arthur Fleck now fully aware of having created a wonderful disaster, both outside and inside his mind.

I thank Todd Phillips for giving us one of the most beautiful comic book movies ever after Nolan's Batman films; from The Hangover to Joker with only a small but successful and underrated interlude like War Dogs of 2016, the step has been decisive.

I thank Joaquin Phoenix because he always leads me to films worthy of note. If he doesn't win the Oscar with this film, I don't know what more he has to do to get that damn statuette he's been trying to win for years now.

I also thank Scorsese because, let's admit it, there are an enormous amount of tributes to his cinema that it's impossible not to notice; Taxi Driver remains always relevant, and this film is nothing but the evolution of those concepts brought to Scorsese's film, but let's not forget the underrated King Of Comedy, which reveals itself as almost a spiritual predecessor of this film, with Robert De Niro effectively stepping into the role that was Jerry Lewis's; from victim to perpetrator, in short.

And let's leave morality aside; the film doesn't have to tell you what to do in your life, otherwise, we would watch Pulp Fiction and inject adrenaline into each other's chests. A film can make you reflect on what it shows you on the screen; and Arthur Fleck will never be a model to emulate, rather what you wouldn't want to become in the future. You can feel what he feels because we're watching events from his perspective; obviously, if the film were based on Thomas Wayne, knowing about three employees dead from an attack by a clown-costumed attacker might seem justly atrocious and wrong, but since it's a film that examines the life of a single character, it's more than legitimate to feel bad for his misadventures: never emulate, but realize that a "superior" attitude towards the weak only brings more violence seems much more honest and relatable (then, in America, they are even worse off than us with guns, school shooters, and everything that comes from it, so it's obvious that it was received more divisively there than in our parts where it even won the Golden Lion!). Then, it is true that there is a tendency to sympathize or try to justify Arthur's actions, but in my opinion, there is a sort of "downward spiral" where you begin to understand that everything he's becoming is deeply dangerous because it's unpredictable; this feeling of mine arrives when Arthur stops taking his medication and increasingly goes off the rails with his impulsive actions.

In itself, it is already miraculous that a film about an unpredictable psycho as a protagonist was released in 2019, a time when if a film is not politically correct or doesn't have an LGBT couple or a girl power scene (I'm looking at you, Endgame) then it's not even considered. Welcome these more "gritty" and auteur films (especially for being a comic book movie) that tackle uncomfortable themes and make you reflect on the world we live in; and said by someone who watches every Marvel movie on the face of the earth with nachos and Pepsi on the couch, maybe it will make sense, who knows.