By: Juan Espinoza
OwlFeed Lifestyle Journalist
NOTE TO READER: This post contains spoilers.
“HA HA HA HA! HI BATS!”
There is one person we think of when we hear this infamous line and it’s the Joker, but who would’ve thought he got his own movie that’s reeling people in as if it was a hero movie. As Ben Parker [Spider-Man’s uncle] puts it, “With great power comes great responsibility,” or in this case, with a great movie comes great expectations.
The Joker — the laughing, murdering clown — has the hottest movie out right now of 2019. With the famous director Todd Phillip and Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix, it’s no wonder the movie is getting so much attention.
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is the main protagonist in the film and to say he had it hard would be an understatement. He’s a man who is a failed comedian and has a low-income clown job that treats him more than just harsh. Joaquin Phoenix played the role astoundingly. He even went as far as to lose 52 pounds in a short amount of time just to add more of a gritty appeal to the distressed character.
Mr. Cleary, a teacher here at Agua Fria said, “Yeah, definitely Joaquin played the role amazingly. Unlike Heath Ledger who was already the joker, Joaquin’s Joker was a villain backstory which was really amusing to see.”
When it comes down to it Joker had amazing plot points, with Arthur having a mental disease that makes him laugh uncontrollably to him being horribly beaten on the same day he gets fired from his job. It really goes to show that just one “bad” day can make someone go just plain insane.
Anthony Lopez, a co-worker of mine, said, “Todd Phillip’s take on the Joker’s story was more depressing and more real-world compared to the others.”
As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. In this case, both Arthur and his mother have mental diseases. His mother in this case suffers from false memory, a disease that makes a person believe something happened but in reality, it never did.
In all the Joker was an amazing movie and Joaquin’s performance as the Joker was nothing more than stellar to me. But the movie shows some of the important things that society needs to keep in check with in order to keep the Joker a movie and not a real-life situation.