Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker Is A Bleak Watch – For All The Wrong Reasons

As you’re no doubt aware if you’re reading this, Joker, one of 2019’s most highly-anticipated (not to mention polarising) films is now in UK cinemas.

The film centres around the famous Batman villain who, in recent years, we’ve seen in multiple incarnations – most notably Heath Ledger’s chilling interpretation in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Jared Leto’s high-energy manic version in Suicide Squad.

This time around, it’s Joaquin Phoenix stepping into the role in a reimagined version of the character with a new back story and some creepy new personality traits.

After debuting to rave reviews at the Venice Film Festival in August, where the audience gave it an eight-minute standing ovation, the film has proved to be a little more divisive since subsequent reviews started rolling in. Empire, for example, called it their “film of the year”, while film magazine Little White Lies’ review was considerably less glowing, questioning whether the filmmakers “even know what they’ve made”.

Having watched Joker shortly before its cinema release, I’m afraid I have to agree with the latter. Not only is the film completely lacking in both joy and anything close to subtlety or nuance, it’s the first film I’ve seen in a long time that I don’t just wish I hadn’t watched, but wish hadn’t been made at all. 

Why? Because it doesn’t feel like much of a leap to imagine Joker – a film which, in essence, is about a hard-on-his-luck loner who gradually becomes more and more empowered as he dives down a rabbit hole of… erm… killing people – could embolden real-world viewers with similar sentiments to potentially follow in the character’s clown-sized footsteps.