Illustration by Athena Little
Every of his expressions will send chills down your spine
By Tania Arora, Staff Writer
4/5
Keeping the legacy alive and shattering box office records, the Joker’s laugh continues to echo in theatres and in the minds of audiences. The movie shows the decline of the Joker—from a regular guy on the street to a man who the streets of Gotham City refused to accept. He was beaten, thrashed, and let down at every point of his life. You become destructive when you have nothing to lose.
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a clown and a comic artist. But in actuality, he is not good at his profession. The problem is that his jokes have no humour. This was shown in his first comedy show, where his performance was so bad that the footage went viral for the funniest (and worst) of all reasons—for not being funny.
Phoenix’s impeccable acting combined with the directing kept the audience holding their breath. Director Todd Phillips has previously worked on the scripts of Road Trip, Old School, and The Hangover. Writer Scott Silver has worked on Johns, and The Fighter. With each of their movies the bar has risen, and now with Joker, it has reached the ceiling.
Joker’s real job was to hold a billboard for a shop dressed as a clown. Some kids got ahold of his sign, gave him a long chase, and pummeled him so badly that it cost him his job. The sad part was that he was then fired for no fault of his own. When he was travelling back from a hard day, he was bullied by drunk passengers on the train when his illness of uncontrollable laughter struck. He fired shots at them with a gun his friend gifted to him. After that, a battle of blood and gore began.
In this film, we see that the life of Arthur Fleck has been hard since childhood. His mom adopted him while she was mentally unwell. His adoptive father abandoned Arthur and his mother. He became fatal when he discovered the truth of his life. When he says to his therapist, “I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire fucking life,” he meant every single word.
But don’t just take my word for it. Many other people have professed how much they enjoyed the movie. Saksham Thakkar, a Douglas student, in an interview with the Other Press said, “The movie was A-mazing. For not even a split second I could take my eyes off. It was so intense with a relevant issue and explaining the history behind the characters of Batman and Joker. Joaquin Phoenix has put forward his best foot.”
The movie is the biggest October opening week film and also has had the biggest second weekend for a film. With Phoenix’s performance, the film will probably continue to break records. If you are looking for a movie that will give you shivers, get your tickets right now. You might regret missing this box office hit in theatres.
