Joker

The first thing I noticed wasn't the clown makeup or the green hair; it was Joaquin Phoenix’s shoulder blades. They look like they’re trying to escape his skin. I watched this in a crowded theater while nursing a slightly warm Ginger Ale because the ice machine was broken, and honestly, that lukewarm, flat sensation felt like the perfect accompaniment to the grime on screen. This isn’t a movie that wants you to be comfortable. It wants you to feel the grit of 1980s Gotham—a city that feels like it smells exclusively of wet trash and despair—right under your fingernails.

When Joker arrived in 2019, the internet was convinced it was going to spark a revolution or, at the very least, a series of very intense lobbied complaints. In an era where franchise fatigue was just starting to set in and every superhero movie felt like a brightly colored commercial for the next superhero movie, Todd Phillips did something wild: he made a mid-budget character study that happened to have a comic book name attached to it. It’s a drama that wears a thriller’s skin, and it’s easily the most uncomfortable billion dollars ever made.

The Man Behind the Paint

We’ve seen the Joker before, usually as a force of nature or a chaotic genius, but Joaquin Phoenix gives us Arthur Fleck: a man who is essentially a human bruise. He’s a failed clown-for-hire living with his mother, Frances Conroy, in an apartment that feels like it hasn't seen a vacuum cleaner since the Nixon administration. Arthur doesn't have a master plan; he just has a neurological condition that makes him laugh uncontrollably when he’s stressed or miserable. It’s a gut-wrenching sound—a high-pitched, choking sob disguised as mirth.

Watching Phoenix transform is hypnotic. He lost 52 pounds for the role, and every movement he makes feels deliberate yet fragile. Whether he’s practicing his stand-up routine in a notebook full of disjointed thoughts or stalking Zazie Beetz through the hallways of their apartment building, he keeps you on a knife’s edge. I spent half the movie wanting to give him a hug and the other half wanting to move three states away from him. That’s the magic of the performance; it’s empathetic right up until it’s absolutely terrifying.

A Masterclass in Atmosphere

The look of this film is everything. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher bathes Gotham in these sickly yellows and bruised blues that make the whole city look like it's decaying in real-time. It’s a blatant, unapologetic tribute to 70s Scorsese, and having Robert De Niro show up as late-night host Murray Franklin is the ultimate "we know what we're doing" wink to the audience. It’s a total reversal of The King of Comedy, with De Niro now playing the idol instead of the stalker.

But the secret weapon is Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score. Usually, scores are added after the filming is done, but Phillips had Hildur write the music based on the script alone. He played her haunting, cello-heavy tracks on set while they were filming, and you can feel it in the way Phoenix moves. Arthur Fleck is the only person in history to make a flight of stairs look like a Broadway stage, and that iconic dance sequence in the Bronx—where the music swells as he finally "becomes" the Joker—is pure cinematic electricity. It’s the moment the movie stops being a sad story about a lonely man and turns into a nightmare about a folk hero for the forgotten.

The "Prestige" of the Prank

There was so much noise around this film's release—social media panics, security concerns, debates about "incel culture"—that the actual craft of the movie almost got lost. But the industry noticed. Joker was the first DC film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a massive "prestige" stamp that signaled this wasn't just another popcorn flick. It eventually bagged 11 Oscar nominations, and seeing Phoenix take home Best Actor felt like an inevitability from the moment the first trailer dropped.

Interestingly, a lot of the best moments weren't even in the script. Apparently, that haunting bathroom dance after the first set of murders was completely improvised by Phoenix on the day. Originally, the script had Arthur just staring in the mirror, but once they played the music, he started that slow, bird-like swaying, and a piece of cinema history was born. It’s those moments of raw, unscripted weirdness that keep Joker from feeling like a calculated "awards bait" project.

Why It Matters Now

Released just before the world went into a literal lockdown, Joker feels like a snapshot of a very specific kind of contemporary anxiety. It tackles class warfare, the dismantling of social safety nets, and the terrifying way the internet can turn a tragedy into a meme. It’s a movie that asks what happens when you take a broken person and keep stepping on them until they finally snap.

Is it a "superhero" movie? Barely. Brett Cullen plays Thomas Wayne not as a benevolent billionaire, but as a cold, disconnected politician, and Shea Whigham pops up as a detective who is just trying to do his job in a city that’s actively rotting. This is a film that takes the toys out of the DC toy box and breaks them on purpose to see what’s inside. It’s grim, it’s loud, and it’s basically a Scorsese cover band that somehow out-sang the original lead. It might be the most cynical film to ever join the billion-dollar club, but I can’t stop thinking about that laugh.

The film leaves you with a heavy, rattling feeling in your chest that doesn't go away the moment you leave the theater. It’s a rare instance of a blockbuster having something genuinely uncomfortable to say about how we treat the "others" in our own streets. Even if you aren't a fan of comic book movies, this one demands to be seen for the craft alone. Just don't expect to leave the theater with a smile on your face, despite what the tagline tells you.