JOKER (2019)

Rated:  R

STARS: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, Brett Cullen, Zazie Beets
DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips
GENRE: Action/Adventure, Drama, Suspense  

When does black comedy cross the line into just nobody's-laughing-now dark and disturbing? That's what I asked myself as I watched Joker--purportedly showing how Batman's nemesis got that way--which has its moments, and lots of them, but in the end is too gratuitously violent for anyone but teenage gamers, serial killers, and mass shooters to embrace without reservation. It's as if director Todd Philips is playing a grisly game of one-upmanship with Quentin Tarantino.

That said, I don't know anyone who can play a deranged psychopath with the kind of panache that Joaquin Phoenix brings to the role. Prancing around in his bizarre clown make-up like a marionette boogieing to the Bee Gees. 

Phoenix is Arthur Fleck, an aspiring comedian who lives with his mother and does clown gigs at birthday parties for little kids. But he does stupid things like bringing a gun along with him, which slips out and clatters across the floor, prompting him to claim it was just a prop. Arthur--who wants to be called Joker--is a tragic figure who doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, but mostly he laughs--dementedly--at inappropriate times. People don't know how to take it, so they beat the shit out of him. One can only take so much of that, and Joker's breaking point comes when he guns down three tormentors on the subway. More carnage will follow as he sinks deeper into his psychosis and the film gets progressively nastier until you're asking yourself...what's the point of all this?

I had to think about what the intended message might be. Perhaps it's that we are one major crisis away from total chaos. (There's a garbage strike in the film's fictional setting of Gotham City, and folks are getting increasingly edgy.) Or that the vicious animal lurking inside us is always there just beneath the surface, ready to bare its fangs when the psychic  signal for batshit crazy mayhem flashes before our eyes.

Joker is purely a character study star vehicle for Joaquin Phoenix to strut his stuff brilliantly upon life's stage and become his signature performance. 

Robert DeNiro as a TV talk show host serves to remind us that the movie's plot dovetails with that of The King Of Comedy.  

The film has blockbuster written all over it, but I often have trouble with blockbusters because I find them to be too comic book slick for my tastes. We have gritty and grisly realism portrayed in unreal ways--as when Joker is running from the authorities and is smashed into by a car, flipping him onto the hood in a way that would either be curtains or a lengthy in-traction hospital stay for a regular person, but this wound-up cuckoo clock just shakes it off and keeps on running.

Joker, for those who can stomach it, presents a darkly disturbing view of a dystopian world that in many ways is already here.

Grade:  C+

JILL'S TAKE

Joker is without a doubt the most disturbing film I've seen since...I dunno. The Shining? Taxi? The Black Swan? Disturbing in a good way. (If there is such a thing!) It definitely makes you think. About mental illness, man's inhumanity to man, even our own breaking points. If you're longing to feel truly uncomfortable, Joker will do it for you.

I read online that Joaquin Phoenix shed 52 pounds before playing this part. Boy did he look emaciated. Which only added to his character's innate insanity. And watching his dance moves reminded me of Michael Jackson's Thriller. I'll bet a clown's outfit he studied those moves while preparing to play this part. So now, aside from Rene Zellweger's performance as Judy Garland, we have a second Oscar contender. Since he's already been nominated three times (The Master, Walk The Line and Gladiator), I'd say Joaquin Phoenix' chances of winning are spot on.

Not since John Williams' score for Jaws, have the suspenseful tones created by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir made me squirm in my seat. And the unrelenting darkness Lawrence Sher's cinematography only added to my discomfort.

As I experienced this film, I wasn't quite sure when reality stopped and delusional thinking took over. And I believe I was meant to feel that way. After all, madness is never simple. The character's outbursts of laughter were particularly unsettling. Later I learned that there's a specific malady with those characteristics called psuedobulbar affect disorder (PAD). In my view, Phoenix should win a Special Oscar just for being able to laugh nonstop for as long as he did.

Up until the last twenty minutes, I was ready to give this tour de violence an A. But Joker suddenly took a wrong turn in my view--from being a character study to being a message movie. I won't go into too much detail as I wouldn't want to ruin the movie. Suffice it to say that it could have easily ended a lot earlier.

Grade  B 

HER (2013)

Rated: R

STARS: Joaquin Phoenix,  Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara,  Olivia Wilde
DIRECTOR: Spike Jonze
GENRE:  Romantic drama

The barrier between human and artificial intelligence is transcended in the sweet but disturbing Her from Spike Jonze.  Is it a romantic comedy?  Is it a serious drama?  Is it a provocative commentary on the growing introversion and alienation in our society? Or is it a thinly disguised, potty-mouthed "phone sex" romp?  

It's a bit of all that.

Joaquin Phoenix is Theodore Twombly, and with a name like that, you know he's a nerd.  He wears dorky looking glasses, and beltless trousers that look like something you'd order off the back page of a magazine. He works as a letter writer/creator for people who are too lazy or too emotionally stunted to compose their own missives to family and significant others. 

The film is set in some unspecified futuristic time. Computer operating systems have the ability to speak, feel human-like emotions, and carry on a conversation in a breathy voice that sounds just like Scarlett Johansson. (Ms. Johansson, as the disembodied "Samantha," never appears physically in the movie. Bummer.)

Theodore is in the process of divorcing his estranged wife, Catherine (the barely recognizable Rooney Mara...guess I'm too used to picturing her as the butchy Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.)  There is a touching scene where he and Catherine are sitting together, and all that's left to do is for her to sign the papers and the deed is done. But she is hesitant. If only there were something they could say or do to turn things around. She affixes her signature anyway, and Theodore's fate is sealed. Because he's falling head-over-heels for Samantha--the perfect, intelligent, dedicated companion we all wish we could find. But computer operating systems'  personalities have the ability to grow. And just as it oft occurs in human on human relationships, Theodore and Samantha may be growing in different directions.

I'm sitting there thinking that Theodore is a real loser, because every chance he has to be with a real woman, he turns it down to preserve his love affair with a computer. But it's probably rare these days to find someone who hasn't become infatuated, or at least highly intrigued, by  the disembodied "voice" of an unseen someone they're communicating with on the internet. Follow the logical progression, and maybe Her isn't as far-fetched as it may seem.in the beginning.  

On the other hand, Her is making a not so subtle statement about  all the folks  who walk around with  their heads buried in their iPhones, eschewing the face-to-face contact that we all used to value before technology turned many of us into sleepwalking zombies with our heads up our butts. The people who, in their distracted stupor, will eventually step in front of a bus or tumble down a manhole. 

Darwin's theory at work.  

Grade:  A --

JILL'S TAKE

I've never been a fan of invisible partners. This loathing of mine began when I watched Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh. I don't include ghost flicks in this category as the ghost character usually appears in human form at some point. But HER takes it too far, way too far. To be honest, I don't know if the reason I despised this movie so vehemently is because the message is so disturbing, or I simply got bored with those endless close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix talking to a hand-held computer. In any case, it gave Tim and me lots to talk about afterwards. (Did I mention that I also don't like futuristic films?)

Even more unsettling than the concept of someone actually becoming enamored with a bodyless voice (who, by the way, tries to arrange a surrogate sex partner for them to share!) is the fact that HER has been nominated in four categories for an Oscar: Best Picture, Best Musical Score, Best Production Design and Best Original Screenplay. I even resent the writer/director Spike Jonze (aka Adam Spiegel) for ripping off Spike Jones' name! (Does anybody remember the bandleader's rendition of "Cocktails for Two" complete with honking horns and hiccuping?)

I suppose I should praise HER for it's timely message, i.e. people are so obsessed with tweeting, texting and hashtagging these days that eye contact has almost become obsolete. To me, that's such a depressing thought that I simply cannot bring myself to say anything positive about this meandering, maddeningly self-indulgent film.

GRADE: D -

TWO LOVERS (now playing at home where you'd be ecstatic to have even ONE lover)

The enigma of why--when given the choice of a lover who's a normal human being or one who's mentally unstable--we often choose the really screwed-up one, is explored in Two Lovers, a romantic drama from director James Gray. Simply put, the people we choose to inhabit our lives are a reflection of our own state of being.

When we meet Leonard Kraditor, (Joaquin Phoenix) he has just jumped into the bay near his Brighton Beach Brooklyn home. Leonard, who works in his father's dry cleaning business, is bi-polar and has tried to do himself in before. Having second thoughts, he rises to the surface and is rescued by some good Samaritans.

Things look up for Lenny from there as first he meets Sandra, (Vinessa Shaw) the daughter of his dad's potential business partner. Sandra is attractive and sweet natured. She goes for Leonard, and soon considers him to be her boyfriend. Both families are pleased, as this will be good for business. Then Leonard discovers Michelle, (Gwyneth Paltrow) his quirky neighbor, who wants to be friends. Michelle is the prototypical lost soul. She ingests a lot of "E." She is a user--not only of drugs--but of people. She's a kept woman, her apartment paid for by Ronald, (Elias Koteas) the married attorney with whom she's having an ongoing relationship. Ronald's not much to look at, but he gets better looking every time her rent comes due.

Leonard goes out clubbing with Michelle and some of her friends. He is smitten by this wild girl. WHY? Because he's a glutton for PUNISHMENT. He wants someone to lead him on--to use him for their own sick reasons, then kick him to the gutter so that he feels like a royal piece of DOG SH*T. YEAH...IT HURTS SO GOOD! Uh...don't let me get carried away. But male or female, you know you've been there.

Leonard keeps the balancing act with Sandra and Michelle going--until the stakes are raised when Michelle tells him she's leaving Ronald and skipping off to San Francisco. Michelle acknowledges that she's screwed-up. Lenny talks her into letting him come along, saying he's just as screwed-up as she is, and thus able to understand her. Then they have sex, standing upright against a wall (sure...they make it look so EASY!) Later, the moment of truth arrives, with Leonard waiting patiently for Michelle to show up for their intended getaway.

Joaquin Phoenix is convincing as a damaged but playfully good natured guy--a trait that, above all else, can help to save him from himself. And Paltrow is a totally believable space case.

As I've mentioned before, a terrific music score--or even a montage of scenes with a great piece of music underneath--carries a lot of weight with me in the final assessment of a film. In Two Lovers, it's Henry Mancini's elegant "Lujon" (which was given lyrics and re-titled "Slow Hot Wind" when Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 recorded it.) It's a dreamy piece of music that carries Leonard through the city and into his "friendly" dinner date with Michelle and Ronald.

When I was growing up, most people seemed NORMAL--now, whomever you run into is likely as not to be playing with less than a full deck. (How and why this has come about is fodder for a different discussion.) Two Lovers is an engrossing character study of some of the "functional dysfunctional" in our society of the 21st century.

In the end: (to paraphrase the Rolling Stones) You can't always get what you want...but sometimes, you get what you need.

GRADE: A