Joker - “That’s Life”
Yeah it’s pretty good I guess ......
Christ it was so tempted just to write that and leave it there but what with everyone raving about how great it is you just want to say something negative, but I can’t. It really is a true masterpiece in acting/writing and direction. It’s an absolutely stunning movie, visually, aesthetically, emotionally, existentially .... grammatically.... but jokes aside this film had me at hello.
Todd Phillips how do you go from The Hangover to this? Boggles the mind, not that The Hangover is a bad film but the two just don’t relate in anyway. Very impressive sir, I tip my hat to you.
The story follows the life of Arthur Fleck who is a socially awkward (putting it mildly) clown performer with, what slowly unfolds throughout the film, very severe mental health issues. I’m not going to spoil this movie at all but there’s some stand out scenes to watch out for. The scene in the train carriage is utterly heartbreaking and the scene where his “friends” visit his apartment to show their support after his mother dies had me on the edge of my seat!
Some fantastic supporting performances from Frances Conroy who plays Arthur's disturbing mother, Brett Cullen who plays Thomas Wayne, where he gets taken down from that Nolan pedestal and shown for the true man Mr Wayne was more likely to have been. (Yes these characters are real to me) And finally do I really need to tell you how excellent De Niro was? ....... no I didn’t think so.
Other things I loved was the spellbinding score by Hildur Guonadottir which captured the horrific yet beautiful essence of this movie. Hildur composed around one of my favourite songs of all time ‘Smile’ - which has been used for the trailers so wonderfully - but gave the song a Zimmer like Brahms punch to it that really hit you right in the chest at the crescendo moments in the film. ‘That’s life’ was also an excellently moving choice of song for this film and made me feel all the emotions at once.
I could go on about the music all day long but I must also mention the fabulous script written by a large writing team including Todd Phillips himself. I couldn’t believe this film included my favourite joke of all time “my friends always laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian ..... well they’re not laughing now” by the genius one liner comedian Bob Monkhouse.
This brought me a lot of joy and just added another layer of person joy and adoration to this almost perfect film.
Haaaaving said that, a few negatives though if I may (I know right?!!)This is a very brave film to make about a character who is an aggressive, murdering, psychopathic, anarchist, who you (maybe just I) wholeheartedly sympathise, empathise and identify with. It really does make you question morality and by the end of the film I was genuinely thinking “yeah f*^k It Joker, kill the lot of them” Therefor I can understand the controversy and backlash this film has been getting.
Also this film might have been just too good. At quite a few moments in this film you can so tell they finished shooting the scene, patted each other all on the back very smugly knowing they were making a “masterpiece” and part of me wants to rebel against that - which I’m sure the Joker would be very happy with.
For those reasons I can only give this film a rating of 9.4/10 .... so there. But obviously you MUST go and see this film while it’s in the cinemas, you won’t be disappointed. That is a Christopher Whitmore guarantee.
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