Saw Joker yesterday with the family, and we all agreed it was really good.

A couple of pain points in the plot for me:

• having the Wayne family going out for a movie on the night when everyone else seemed to be expecting major social upheaval, leading to, well you know what.
• the unlikelihood that the Arthur’s bad stand-up footage would have been shown on the Murray Franklin show… having video recording equipment handy in that day and age? Someone just happened to have a suitcase-sized VHS recorded with them at the bar?

Quibbles aside, the movie was gritty, showcasing a simulacrum of seedy New York City in the 70s. A series of events unfold that allow an already unhinged person to realize that he is capable of a kind of violence that makes him feel powerful, after a long life of powerlessness.

The first scene–where Joker defends himself from yet another pummeling where’s he’s literally kicked while he’s down–by shooting his assailants is, despite the consequent investigation, empowering to Joker. Even this moment was thrust upon him in a way: the gun was given to him by a well-meaning, if otherwise cowardly, co-worker after Joker suffers a beating at the hands of some bullying teens. So much of what leads to him becoming Joker are matters of happenstance: not situations that he chose, but rather found himself in.

My initial impression, reinforced by the revelation that Sophie Dumond was not, in fact, cultivating a relationship with Arthur, was that much of what Arthur was experiencing was a delusion: he would remain convinced of Thomas Wayne’s parentage, never having an opportunity to find out otherwise; he would believe he had been featured on the Murray Franklin show, but never truly was; he had a conversation wherein he was invited onto the Murray Franklin show, but never truly was. In the way that his relationship with Sophie was wholly imagined, I thought that his motivations and inducements would be, as well.

Despite some of these points being a little to on the nose for my taste, I did love how Arthur-cum-Joker embraced, organically, the power of spectacle to showcase his brand of terror and chaos. He realizes, in a moment of lucidity, that he was brought on to the Murray Franklin show to be made fun of, and rather than use his own suicide to shock the audience, he turns to a shocking display of TV violence. As the movie closes, he revels in bringing chaos to a world that was cruel to him. He is suddenly welcomed, surrounded by a flock… and crowned the Clown Prince of Crime.

It was really well done.