“A comic-book movie for the ages.”
“A film that transcends the comic-book genre.”
“A cinematic masterpiece.”
The comic-book genre is wide, and there is room for a broad range of stories within that genre, just as there is room for multiple and varied interpretations of pre-established characters.
But in order to transcend a genre, you first have to operate within that genre. In order to be a brilliant comic-book movie, you first have to be a comic-book movie.
It’s ironic. For a movie that is supposedly in a genre where people dress up in costumes to disguise who they are, Joker does the exact same thing: It puts on a costume to disguise the kind of movie it actually is.
My main concern going into the film remains my main criticism having come out of it: That this is a Joker film in name only. It has little-to-nothing to do with the actual character of the Joker, the DC Universe, or the Batman mythos.
You could strip this movie of all the naming conventions (Gotham, Joker, Thomas and Bruce Wayne) and absolutely nothing would be different. I think it would actually be better for it.
Which is not to say that it’s a bad film. It’s a harrowing character study of a broken man in a broken world. It raises questions about violence and mental illness. It shines a spotlight on the people who fall through the cracks, or are pushed into them.
But the film also subverts any insights it might actually have due to the nature of the narrative. Not long into the film, the audience comes to realize that it is walking with an extremely unreliable narrator (which is actually in keeping with the character of the Joker), one that is primarily concerned with his own self-fulfilling flights of fancy.
This may leave the audience with the mental puzzle of figuring out what actually happened in the film. But that will only last for so long, and beyond that there’s not much to chew on.
One thing I will say: I’m not sure there has ever been a film more of or for our time. Seemingly clever and insightful, but ultimately empty. Impeccably made, but ultimately hollow. Lights and sound, but not much substance. Full of pain and rage, but ultimately without truth.
It is perhaps appropriate that a film about a split man is itself split. In trying to be both a Scorsese-esque character piece and a genre film, it doesn’t do the former as well as it could have, and it does the latter almost not at all. In trying to do both, it suffers for it.
If this was just a movie about a broken man dealing with the broken world, I would have different things to say. But the fact that it paints itself with the Joker’s face actually creates a black mark against it in my book.
Thanks for reading.
-a.
Originally published October 7th, 2019