After listening to polarised views and a lot of deliberation (literally), I finally watched ‘Joker’ a couple of nights back. This is my review of the Todd Phillips directed movie. Let me first state that I feel that audiences globally & specially in Pakistan need to understand that not every kind of cinema is for all audiences. Movie ratings should be taken seriously by distributors, cinema owners & the audiences- Joker is not a movie for all audiences.
Joker touches upon the issue of mental illness in the society, but unfortunately, people in our society aren’t educated enough (yet) regarding this serious problem. There needs to be a certain amount of literacy regarding mental health when it comes to the audiences watching the movie. It is a painful journey that has been portrayed in Joker.
Image Credit: Warner Bros
The movie requires a lot of empathy (from the viewers) with the protagonist to understand why he gradually transforms into the antagonist (or forced to be so) that he becomes due to the circumstances he finds himself in. His troubled past and to know that even that wasn’t his true past and that the reality was even darker than what he had imagined is very well layered and you can’t really guess what’s going to happen next. Arthur Fleck isn’t a character you would (or should) cheer for, but you do feel for the person who feels betrayed by someone who was the only reason for him to make an effort towards sanity. His inability to understand that even his mother had a difficult time coping with her own condition is another very well presented shade of the story told by Todd Phillips.
As the story moves forward, it starts getting more & more encrypted. You watch the movie till the end & then you try to connect the dots afterwards. Following the Dark Knight trilogy, Todd Phillips seems to have tried the Nolan approach of storytelling in this one. He hasn’t done a bad job at it. The movie is graphic in nature and dark to the core which isn’t appreciated by a lot of people. But hey! it is a Rated- R movie to the begin with. What were you expecting? Rabbit out of the hat?
This was the first piece of work I saw of Joaquin Phoenix and if this is how all of his movies are, he should have a cupboard full of awards. The music, cinematography and art direction were all very carefully handled to create a world that pulls you right into it and transports you to Todd Phillips’ Gotham City.
The movie is a cinematic masterpiece but just like its central character, it is misunderstood by most of the critics & audiences.
-Hammad A. Mateen
Hammad Abdul Mateen's Blog 