Unless you live under a rock, you’ve more than likely heard of the movie, Joker that recently came out. If you’re looking for a brief synopsis, it’s a movie about how a man named Arthur Fleck became the infamous supervillain we all know and love; Joker. Now that I gave you that very exclusive spoiler free description of Joker, I want to get into the two main reasons that I enjoyed this movie so much. Tread carefully, there are spoilers ahead!
First off, one of the biggest reasons that this film worked so well in my opinion was simply due to Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Joker. Although I have seen some of Phoenix’s previous work including Her (2013) and The Master (2012), I don’t think I’ve seen Phoenix shine quite as bright as an actor as he did in Joker. He fully embodied the character and pulled it off so well that I honestly forgot I was watching Joaquin Phoenix on screen. One of the most impressive things about Phoenix’s performance is the lengths he went to portray Arthur Fleck aka Joker. Phoenix is known to be a method actor, so not only did he get in the mindset of Joker, but he also physically became him by losing more than 52 pounds in order to better play the role. I think this is so impressive because knowing that Phoenix had to take home the character with him at the end of the day makes his performance that much more chilling…in a good way of course!
The second and probably the biggest reason I loved this movie so much is how well I think it portrayed how society treats people with mental illnesses. Getting to see a character on screen with a mental illness that affects their everyday life is something that not a lot of movies do. Although Joker is a very well-known antagonist and villain, this movie never tries to paint him as an evil guy, but rather a man who has struggled a lot leading him to a life of mischief to put it lightly. The movie emphasizes how badly society treats certain people, mainly people with certain mental illnesses and people of the “lower class.” This movie is important because it doesn’t make excuses for the way that society treats people like Arthur Fleck but instead it criticizes society for that exact reason. Even though you might not be a person diagnosed with a mental illness and you may not live below the poverty line, it’s almost impossible not to see at least a little bit of yourself in Arthur (hopefully not too much though because let’s not forget he’s literally a serial killer and profound arsonist). Overall, getting to see the character of Joker in such a raw and vulnerable light made me love both the character and this movie so much!
If you couldn’t tell, I think everyone should go see Joker, preferably in theaters if possible since it should be playing on the big screen for a couple more weeks. If you’re still unsure about watching this film, maybe you’ll want to see it when you learn that as of recently, it is officially the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. If you can then definitely go see it in theaters and see for yourself if all the hype about Joker is truly worth it.