Film Review: Joker Asks “Have you been kind?”
Watching Joker was rough. From the onset, it is clear that Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is mentally unwell. He has been locked in a psych ward, a place he acknowledges, to his exhausted social worker, made him feel safe. He is taking 7 different pills to seem semi-functional, but is begging for more as incessant negative thoughts and constant depression are not helping the poverty run, he calls his life, feel any more invigorating. He has no money and no family or friends beyond an ailing mother whose own delusions can feel like a real drab. Of course, you might say no one can be that sad and abandoned, but, perhaps, that is why some find Todd Phillips’ Joker so triggering; it is an in-depth look at a mentally ill man slowly losing the last bit of mind he had left.
Watching Joker was like being strapped to a speeding train with no brakes; you know the crash is coming and every bump on the road makes you cringe. With my own psych courses under my belt, every time Arthur got bullied, I kept on thinking “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” He reminded me of a young man in my high school with his own mental health issues and how everyone would make fun of him because he was weird, except for me. Now, before you canonize me for sainthood, I was kind not simply because you should be, but because I once saw his notebook was filled with questionably violent images that made 13 year old me note something was off. Moreover, the more he got bullied, the more he sunk into his darkness: happily creeping people out because, for some, if you can’t join them…… you terrify them.
JOKER – Final Trailer – in theaters Thursday
Phillips has used Joker to put up a mirror on a fractured society that truly believes its most vulnerable has no right to go crazy. Yes, you are desolate but have some dignity! The problem with that statement is mental health is not, necessarily, a right. Access to mental health doctors, institutions, and medicines ARE a right, but actual sanity is not a right. It is a condition. Hence, in some ways, Phillips mocks privileged mentalities that believe sanity is a guarantee and every mind, literally, can thread the mental or spiritual fibers that make people resilient in the face of apparent oppressions like, poverty. Enter Thomas Wayne as surprising symbol for elitism and the ultra-wealthy’s belief that poor people just don’t know how to stop clowning around (pun intended!).
Joker’s Gotham is incredibly poor and everyone in this film, except for the rich like Wayne, is tired, hopeless, and disillusioned with every “trust-fund baby” that swears they are the cosmic response/ change for systemic oppression. Make no mistake: there would be no rich without the poor, which is why the wealthy has limits to how they help the poor. Who am I if you are my equal? In this question, Joker begins to unravel as a man desperate to be seen and, literally, off his meds because Gotham has completely cut funding for the social and health programs that kept Arthur, at least, a little sane. I squirmed in my seat at that instance. Arthur is clearly the most helpless amongst The Helpless, and it is no wonder he can’t find aid amongst those that, themselves, are in need. Hence, as a viewer, your heart palpitates because if Heath Ledger’s Joker asked, “Why so serious?” Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker asks, “Have you been kind?”
JOKER Stairs Dancing Scene – JOKER (2019) Movie CLIP HD
As Arthur continuously gets physically and spiritually beat down, and his mind begins to fade, it is clear Phillips is trying to show that society make its monsters, and most of us watch to see them either destroy or be destroyed.Joker is one of the best films of recent because it is SO thought-provoking. I could write a million reviews and journals on the billions of meanings this film can have for every viewer, especially through Phoenix’s performance. He NEEDS to get an Oscar for this portrayal because it is so rare that you get a performance as impactful as his. Moreover, he is the first portrayal of Joker that reminds people insanity is a mental illness. Joker comes out October 4.
