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The final trailer for “Joker” starring Joaquin Phoenix was released today and reveals many more plot details along with a glimpse into Phoenix’s full range of acting as the titular character.
The Joker is an origin story for the Batman villain and instead of being a bombastic comic book action movie based around Batman, it’s a character study into how the character came to be and why he is the way he is. Phoenix plays “Arthur Fleck” a failed comedian with mental health issues that is driven to madness and eventually ends up being forced into Gotham’s underworld.
While the end of the movie is pretty clear, how Phoenix’s joker gets to be the deranged, psychotic, signature villain of the Batman universe remains to be seen.
In the trailer, we get our first glimpse at the Joker’s love interest Sophie Durmond (played by Zazie Beetz). She asks him “it’s so awful isn’t it?” in an elevator at one point and the two share a kiss towards the end of the trailer. Her character seems to be the only one in the film that sympathizes with Arthur who struggles to connect even with his therapist.
The film is directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover, War Dogs) from a screenplay co-written with Scott Silver loosely based on Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) which depicts the Joker as a failed standup comedian, driven mad by a society that rejects and mocks him. Though Phillips told Digital Spy that the movie doesn’t “follow anything from the comic books… That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker.” The inspiration from the dark graphic novel is clear.
The movie also takes inspiration from Martin Scorsese’s films based in the 1970s that focus on troubled protagonists including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and especially The King of Comedy. Scorcese was actually supposed to produce the film but left in 2018 due to other obligations.
In the final trailer, Phoenix’s acting chops are on full display. Instead of the first few trailers where we see his character as a poor, down on his luck type, this final trailer focuses on his transformation into an irredeemable, psychotic supervillain.
A First Look at Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro is in the film as Murray Franklin a talk show host in the vein of Johnny Carson or David Letterman in the late 80s and early 90s. Deniro mocks Phoenix’s Joker, playing his local standup set and making fun of his performance. “They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian,” the Joker says, “well nobody’s laughing now!”
“You can say that again, pal” De Niro quips as the audience laughs.
De Niro’s is a clear homage to Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy. A spiritual successor to the Joker film that follows De Niro’s character as a failed, deranged comedian named Rupert Pupkin who becomes obsessed with comedian and late-night talk host Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis). As Pupkin is continually rebuffed by Langford and told his act is mediocre and he will never make it, he slowly goes insane before kidnapping Langford in order to get an appearance on his show.
In the final trailer, De Niro is now Jerry Lewis’ character. Mocking Arthur Fleck’s standup routine and even punching him in the face at one point after Fleck is laughing at him in his dressing room.
The plot of the two movies is starkly similar but where The King of Comedy was a black comedy that focused on the dangers of celebrity worship and obsession with fame, the Joker, despite its title, is a much darker, more serious character-driven film.
The Joker Starts a Riot
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In a newly revealed plot development, the Joker appears to start a “movement” of chaos that ripples through Gotham City. At one point you see a person on TV holding up a sign that says “We’re all clowns!” We also see the front page of a newspaper that says “The new movement” and features an illustration of an evil clown.
The city descends into crime and chaos, a staple of the Joke character, as we see several scenes of vandalism, crime, and at one point what seems like a riot at city hall. There’s also a clip of a large brawl with several other similarly dressed clowns in a subway car assaulting Gotham citizens.
“At one point, I wasn’t even sure that I existed,” he says, “But now, people are starting to notice” as we see an ambulance smash into a car amidst a city in chaos.
The end of the trailer shows the Joker in his dressing room getting ready for an appearance on Murray Franklin’s talk show. It’s unclear how he got on the talk show but it might be another homage to The King of Comedy .
Phoenix’s Performance Already Looks Impressive
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This new trailer puts Joaquin Phoenix’s formidable acting chops on full display. He goes from dejected, to depressed, to deranged, and finally to complete sociopath who’s embraced his new role as the bad guy who thinks he’s doing good.
Phoenix’s range is impressive here, as we finally see his glimpses of his take on the character and how he transforms from mild-mannered nobody into the character we all know. The signature laugh marks the beginning of the trailer and the final shot shows his version of the Joker’s voice. “Hey Murry”, he says, “When you bring me out, can you introduce me as joker?”
Even in the brief trailer, you can see his face and mannerisms change dramatically as his character progresses throughout the movie. In the earlier trailers, you only saw Arthur Fleck before he went mad. This latest trailer shows why Phoenix was selected to play the role.
According to Indiewire, in order to prepare for the role, Phoenix studied victims of PLC (Pathological Laughter or Crying). “I saw videos showing people suffering from pathological laughter, a mental illness that makes mimicry uncontrollable.”
Doubts that Phoenix wouldn’t be able to live up to the high bar set by the late Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight may be put to rest by this latest trailer.
Joker will be in theaters nationwide on October 4.
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