Revisiting Joker: How Joaquin Phoenix’s performance made up for the weak story

When a movie fails to make you laugh, cry, or even think, you begin to wonder if it’s even a movie at all. If it doesn’t offer the escape and entertainment we’re used to from cinema, and if it isn’t developed enough to make you think about some of its points, is it even worth watching, let alone the sequel? ? Directed by Todd PhillipsJoker, for which lead actor Joaquin Phoenix received the prestigious Oscar, is exactly that. It’s a bunch of nothingness thrown together into a two-hour movie that survives by trying to feel important.

Yes, there are a few questions to consider about how we continually fail as a society. We disappoint people and it breeds negativity and insecurity in them, and the result is that someone like the Joker’s alter ego, Arthur Fleck, is damaged beyond repair. We see the squalor and basements of Joker’s Gotham to showcase the emotional turmoil of a human Joker over a period of time. We see his madness and witness his maniacal laughter. We see him fall in love with his neighbor, played by the beautiful Zazie Beetz. And we see him lose control on a talk show hosted by none other than Robert De Niro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dsx7LPZOMM

But none of the things listed above are given enough time and space to breathe, and when they are, it becomes overindulgent. The director can’t hold his breath.

One of the main reasons why Joker somehow caught people’s attention was the outstanding performance of the eccentric Phoenix. Gracefully balancing the extreme emptiness and insanity of the character, the actor managed to bring out the finer nuances of the challenging role previously played by acclaimed actors such as Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson.

Somehow, almost miraculously, Joaquin Phoenix managed to soar above all the messiness and pretentiousness of the Joker, especially in the moments when Arthur feels undeserving of love (the bus sequence) and when he embraces some of his chaos, expressing vulnerability like some of the pieces. On the stairs or in a downright cold tone to her therapist, “All I have are negative thoughts.”

The scene that stands out from the rest of the self-indulgence is when the Joker shoots talk show host Murray, played by De Niro, moments after he expresses that he feels misunderstood and mistreated. The emotion and suppressed anger that Phoenix evokes in that five-minute scene is an example of good acting. If Phoenix had flexed even a few seconds of those five minutes, the whole scene could have gone awry.

Summary: Joker was worth it (thanks to its lead actor), but did we really need a sequel? I think no.

Joker, also starring Glenn Fleshler, Frances Conroy and Josh Pais, can be watched on Netflix and Prime Video.