So when this film released a few months ago, it rustled some feathers to put it very, very mildly. Across the pond it seemed there was a full scale moral panic about Joker, with a police presence at screenings and the press running wild with paranoia about the film inspiring incel terrorism. Me being me, I have some thoughts on that whole shit show and will be sharing them in this review, because not since Get Out have I seen a film that takes a societal issue, drives and axe into it and throws the resulting gore on the screen for everyone to see.
Joker, right from the outset, can best be described as uncomfortable; not because I'm scared it'll inspire terrorism or some other bullshit, but because this film is so utterly and transfixingly effective at showing us the mind of a broken man. We see everything we need to see in the film's opening scene as Arthur applies his makeup in a mirror, stretching his mouth into a smile as a tear runs down his face. From there we get a brutal scene of him being attacked in an alley way, though it's not brutal for the beating itself, but for the path we know Arthur is on, a path he's been on for a long, long time. This film is all about Arthur, literally, I can only recall a single scene where he isn't in the spotlight. And not only is Arthur the entire point of the film, he is brilliant. Arthur Fleck is one of the most compelling protagonists I've seen this year, he's up there with Alita from Alita: Battle Angel, but while Alita was sweet and cute and lovable, Arthur's about as lovable as, well, as an unhinged social outcast. There's a constant sense of dread about him as you know that he's a ticking time-bomb, he's a guy who's never been given a break in his entire life; his childhood sucked in all kinds of ways that film delves into in an intriguing way, he is mocked and bullied by the people around him, he is dirt on the shoe of the world and as twisted as it sounds, you can't help but feel for the guy. You're almost certainly not going to agree with him by the end of the film, but there is a level of sympathy to him, one which I think is one of the key factors in the moral panic around this film. 
Because Arthur Fleck isn't born evil, he is made evil, he's not some black and white demon that can be solely blamed for all the horrible things he does, he's just a man, he's broken and alone and the world doesn't care about him. Instead of getting the help he needed, getting thrown a bone, the world just continues to push him away, and in addition to what we learn of his past, this social ostracization plays a massive part in his transformation. That is the reason this film scares people so much in my opinion, because in this age of identity politics, people like Arthur have come to exist; sad, lonely, ostracized people who think the world hates them and have ended up resenting the world in return. The phrase incel has been thrown around a lot in relation to this film and for any normies who don't know what that means, it's a shortened term for involuntary celibate, someone who can't get laid, but like all progressive buzzwords, it's come to mean just about whatever the left wants it to mean, in this case, it's a quiet, lonely, socially outcast white guy. People like Arthur who are on the very bottom of society, no one wants anything to do with them, and to the progressives, these losers and incels are the problem with the world; they're evil and misogynistic and should be mocked and marginalised, because that's how anyone you don't like looks when you think you're morally righteous. Yet here's Joker, a film that looks deep into the mind of a loser who's been pushed around and stepped on his entire life and has finally decided to go full Tyler Durden and just burn it down, and while the film doesn't look on his actions heroically, it shows just how much society contributes to the creation of the Joker. 
The film dabbles in mental illness to a significant degree and is a clear statement about the treatment of the issue, Arthur struggles with his condition and doesn't get the help he needs, instead the institution that was trying to help him gets its funding cut and he's left not knowing who to talk to or where he can even get his medication. It can be seen that the film has a political message, and while I can see aspects of that, I see the film's themes as much more personal and social, Arthur has no intention of becoming a political actor but becomes one anyway by being in the right place at the right time. What starts out as a bad situation becomes a catalyst for political upheaval in Gotham but it stirs something entirely different in Arthur, who starts to realise that he doesn't have to conform to the moral standards of Gotham's elite, and that he can embrace the nihilism he feels. This is another reason I think Joker has sparked a moral panic as just like in the film, it is the elite that feel they can determine and dictate morality, which, again, is ever more prevalent in our modern, politically correct world where saying or doing the wrong thing can put you in the sights of morally righteous busybodies who will try to destroy you. That happens to Arthur in the film as well when Murray plays a clip of him on his talk show, mocking his weak comedy and constant laughing. As Joker says in the film's finale, nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy, Arthur tries to make something of himself and his hero mocks him for it on live TV. 
As I said before, Arthur is made evil, but there is one thing he was born as; insignificant. Speaking personally here, this is the aspect of this film that scares me the most; because I'm sure we can all understand how it feels to not matter, or to at least think that you don't matter. It's a terrible feeling to feel insignificant, just another face in the crowd that nobody notices or cares about. Again going back to the film's themes of elitism and wealth inequality, Joker is one of countless people suffering in Gotham city, a nobody that the better off think they can ignore and mistreat, when in reality the opposite is true; take away a man's sense of meaning and expression and he'll eventually take it back. I say man very specifically here because how men as a whole have effectively been pathologized through progressive politics. And in case you think that sounds absurd, seriously, take a look at that Gillette add that kicked up a stink a few months back, listen to someone like Labour MP Jess Philips, or better yet, just listen to any feminist talk about men and male issues and you'll see it. Concepts like male privilege and toxic masculinity, the former being the notion that being a man is an advantage in society and that men must therefore be disadvantaged to make things fair, and the latter self-evidently being a display of contempt for masculinity and masculine characteristics. And going back to the notion of incels; it says a lot about progressives that they see incels as monsters; at once a frightening underbelly of society, filled with violence and misogyny, but also an army of weak, unimportant losers unworthy of sympathy or even recognition.
Like Gotham's elite, progressives have assumed themselves to be morally righteous and justify their bigotry towards and mistreatment of others with nice sounding untruths. Joker's exploring of the themes of masculinity aren't as prominent as its exploration of mental illness or ostracization, but like its themes of wealth inequality, it's hard to deny their presence; there is only so far you can abuse someone before they retaliate, and that premise is the heart of this film. Because as much as we want to see him become the Joker and do Jokery things, there is a deep sense of tragedy to Arthur's story, as if there was always a chance that his turn to villainy could've been averted but the rest of society didn't care enough to try. Joker is a film that makes you question your place in the world; you may not be a monster in the making yourself, but you may be helping to create one without even knowing it, carrying on with your own isolated life and not thinking of the effect you're having on others, just like Murray humiliating Arthur by playing the clip of his comedy set, just like anyone who faces the wrath of the twitter mob, or gets unfairly fired, or gets ridiculed and bullied for factors they can't control, or never gets given a chance by the opposite sex. It's a film that shows us how easy it is to just call them crazy and absolve ourselves of any responsibility for their actions, and while it can be argued that the film is heavy handed, its message of having empathy for others is something that was inevitably going to get under the skin of some people, because they don't have empathy and don't want to be told as much because they're the good guys.
I've talked an awful lot about the film's themes and Arthur in this review, but the truth is there isn't really anything else to discuss; the film's very, very light on side-characters and what it does have plays into the film's themes; Thomas Wayne for example is a wealthy, powerful mayoral candidate who thinks he can help the suffering people in Gotham, but then describes its impoverished masses as clowns, Murray's a talk show host who doesn't care who he hurts to get a laugh out of the audience, even if hurting them was never the intention or even something he considered. The film also dabbles in how the media and elite can warp public opinion; after the subway scene, one of the most crucial scenes in the film, Arthur's actions are portrayed as purely evil and cowardly as if they occurred within a bubble when Arthur and we, the audience know that isn't the case, but rather it was the culmination of several factors, and that no one party was solely to blame. But that doesn't matter as again, the elite and media of Gotham feel that they can define what is good and dictate that to the masses, sound familiar? Apart from Thomas Wayne, the film does have a couple other references to Batman; the setting of Gotham, and Arkham, Bruce and Alfred making an appearance, but Joker's connections to Batman are very minimal, which makes me believe Todd Phillips' quote of sneaking a real movie through the studio system. Despite being about the Batman villain, Joker isn't really a comic book movie at all, it's a character film that loosely uses the Batman comics as a backdrop, which is one of the complaints I've heard from people about it. It's not like the comics or it's not comic booky enough, but that just isn't the movie Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix made here, and as cynical as you want that to be, at the end of the day, this movie puts every comic book movie of 2019 in the shade, in fact it puts most movies of 2019 in the shade.You Get What You Fucking Deserve
Joker is like an inkblot; it's a film that can be interpreted in a bunch of different ways and can mean wildly different things to different people. But what I find most curious about it is how much it says about people based on how they interpret it, which explains a great deal of the hysteria and outrage behind the film in my opinion. Joker is a film that holds a mirror up to its audience, it asks its audience to consider things that are personal, uncomfortable, even scary; it makes you ask just what part you play in the making of a monster. At the heart of this tragedy is Arthur and his gripping and heart-breaking descent into madness, a story that'll disappoint anyone hoping to see a comic book movie, but then it becomes a matter of expectations; go in wanting an action packed comic book movie that doesn't challenge you in any way, you're looking the wrong place, because Joker is so, so much more than at, and it is absolutely a must watch.
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