Joker. (15.)
Directed by Todd Phillips.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen and Marc Maron. 122 mins.
Like Mad Max:Fury Road, Joker was a proposition that didn't seem to make much sense when you heard they were doing it. Now I have seen it I'm not sure it makes any more sense but this standalone take on comic books' most compelling character is daring, thrilling, unexpected, ghastly and probably the last thing the world needs right now. Well, it's another bloody origins tale, isn't it?
Unlike his nemesis, doomed to be repeatedly orphaned as a child outside that cinema, the Joker is a character of no fixed lineage. Here he is an Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill man who works as a clown and suffers from a condition that means that he laughs at inopportune moments. He isn't any kind of supervillain but in an early 80s Gotham brought to its knees by a garbage collection strike his insanity taps into an underlying resentment and becomes a catalyst.
Phillips, director of The Hangover trilogy, presents us not with special effects and action, but a grimy character study. The decision to shoot this with Imax cameras is perverse but inspired; it looks fantastic on the big screen and is the best use of the expanded screen format since Dunkirk.
The funniest idea in the film is De Niro, notoriously an interviewer's nightmare, being cast as a chat show host. He has though lightened up in recent years and here is such a good sport that he is prepared to sit there and watch Phoenix do two of his greatest performances - Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and Rupert Pupkin from King of Comedy - right back at him with a ferocity that makes his creations seem almost quaint.
While De Niro's character is the embodiment of lazy showbiz complacency, Phoenix throws himself into his role with Method intensity, doing the kind of extreme body transformations De Niro was once known for. Instead of gaining the pounds, he shed them to an alarming, skeletal degree.
(It is in stark contrast to Phoenix's podgy Jesus in Mary Magdalene. His commitment to that role was sucking his stomach in for the crucifixion.)
It's not flawless. For such a supposedly original take it is oddly derivative and not just of classic early Scorsese: scenes from previous Batman films get homaged, particularly the Dark Knight.
The film is genuinely disturbing. This is partly because it is tapping into contemporary faultlines and partly because it seems exploitative. There is a queasy, nagging sense that maybe they shouldn't be doing this, that perhaps the filmmakers haven't fully thought this piece of homicidal cosplay through. This was the year that a comic book movie became the biggest moneyspinner ever, but nothing says 2019 quite like a superhero film with no hero.
Directed by Todd Phillips.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen and Marc Maron. 122 mins.
Like Mad Max:Fury Road, Joker was a proposition that didn't seem to make much sense when you heard they were doing it. Now I have seen it I'm not sure it makes any more sense but this standalone take on comic books' most compelling character is daring, thrilling, unexpected, ghastly and probably the last thing the world needs right now. Well, it's another bloody origins tale, isn't it?
Unlike his nemesis, doomed to be repeatedly orphaned as a child outside that cinema, the Joker is a character of no fixed lineage. Here he is an Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill man who works as a clown and suffers from a condition that means that he laughs at inopportune moments. He isn't any kind of supervillain but in an early 80s Gotham brought to its knees by a garbage collection strike his insanity taps into an underlying resentment and becomes a catalyst.
Phillips, director of The Hangover trilogy, presents us not with special effects and action, but a grimy character study. The decision to shoot this with Imax cameras is perverse but inspired; it looks fantastic on the big screen and is the best use of the expanded screen format since Dunkirk.
The funniest idea in the film is De Niro, notoriously an interviewer's nightmare, being cast as a chat show host. He has though lightened up in recent years and here is such a good sport that he is prepared to sit there and watch Phoenix do two of his greatest performances - Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and Rupert Pupkin from King of Comedy - right back at him with a ferocity that makes his creations seem almost quaint.
While De Niro's character is the embodiment of lazy showbiz complacency, Phoenix throws himself into his role with Method intensity, doing the kind of extreme body transformations De Niro was once known for. Instead of gaining the pounds, he shed them to an alarming, skeletal degree.
(It is in stark contrast to Phoenix's podgy Jesus in Mary Magdalene. His commitment to that role was sucking his stomach in for the crucifixion.)
It's not flawless. For such a supposedly original take it is oddly derivative and not just of classic early Scorsese: scenes from previous Batman films get homaged, particularly the Dark Knight.
The film is genuinely disturbing. This is partly because it is tapping into contemporary faultlines and partly because it seems exploitative. There is a queasy, nagging sense that maybe they shouldn't be doing this, that perhaps the filmmakers haven't fully thought this piece of homicidal cosplay through. This was the year that a comic book movie became the biggest moneyspinner ever, but nothing says 2019 quite like a superhero film with no hero.
