The Clown Prince of Crime — Joker: Thoughts

Pratip Vijayakumar
5 min readOct 9, 2019

Warning: This review may contain Spoilers and I request you to read at your discretion.

I am not sure where to start, because the movie is so much content heavy. I’m still processing this movie. It is so hard to answer the difficult questions this movie poses. I am an advocate of the idea that Movies play a role in shaping people. It might not be suitable for other countries but for India and for most Indians, movies and TV Series are the major part of their entertainment. No, I’m not blaming these mediums for the crimes in our country but people tend to take bad things faster than the good ones. I’m still battling to come to a conclusion if this movie really will be taken as an inspiration.

I was perplexed when Arthur Fleck kills someone close to him, people whistled. Yes, that person was the reason for his current condition but whistling for killing? I’m not sure what should I make out of that. Joker is a kind of a movie where it deals with Mental health majorly and we are shown the origin of one of the baddest and brutal Supervillains of the DC Universe. This movie might make you feel sad for Arthur and side with him but when he makes those murders and brutal crimes we are petrified. It is such a thin line and Joaquin Phoenix was terrific in this role as Arthur/Joker.

The man really does ask some important questions and makes you uncomfortable. When I came out of the movie I was wondering people like us were at some point made someone like Joker. We pushed him, we mocked him instead of listening to him. There are a few beautiful dialogues and quotes in the movie which I loved and they summarise the character of Arthur becoming a Joker.

“Arthur to his Psychiatrist: Do you even listen to me? Every time you ask How was my job? How is life? Are you having any negative thoughts? but all I am having is just negative thoughts.

Psychiatrist: Arthur, I have some bad news. They have cut the funding and this will be the last time we will be meeting.

Arthur: Where will I get my medications?

Psychiatrist: They don’t care about people like you Arthur or people like me”

After this particular scene, you see a kind of sad smile on his face, I really pitied him. All his pain starts when he was mistreated and when no one noticed or cared about him when people made fun of him, taking care of his ill stricken mother. Why is it hard for people to acknowledge other human beings for their way of living? We are not leading a superior life that everyone should lead it in the same fashion as we are. Life is too short to make other lives harder.

I love this movie and I really do love how Joaquin Phoenix brought the best version of Joker on screen. Also, I’ve learnt plenty of lessons from this movie. The music was terrific and creepy, it is hard to have both these together. Also, I must say that cinematography was fantabulous with the different colour pallets used to show the mood of the lead.

One important lesson from this movie is that everyone deals with a whole lot of shit in their life. Instead of just making a comment on their lifestyle or their preferences, why don’t we shut up and be compassionate towards each other? When your closed ones are dealing with any kind of issues instead of pouring your bloody suggestions why can’t you shut up and listen? All they need is someone to listen to their problems but not expecting solutions. All they need is an assurance that we will be on their side, no matter what. All they expect is a hug and a shoulder to lean on.

The movie gives us a perspective of Arthur Fleck the human being who suffered so much that he became the King of chaos. On the other end of the spectrum, we see the little Bruce Wayne whose parents are murdered by the inspiration of Joker. But Bruce takes the positive route of Crime-fighting. Well, that’s what the story is all about. We already know what happens after Bruce’s parents are murdered, I wish they ended the movie with Bruce standing in front of his dead parents and Joker standing on the car bonnet in front of the people who he inspired. That would have been a fitting ending for the movie.

On a broader spectrum, I could pull parallels between Katradhu Tamizh (2007) a Tamil movie which also deals with one such traumatized person who becomes a sociopath. These two characters are more or less the same, all they need is recognition and acceptance. Both their anger was directed towards the rich and the good earning ones. These people get the accolades and attention they need but on the other end, there are people like Prabhakar and Arthur Fleck who go unnoticed. Is it right to be angry on the ones who got richer?

There is one particular scene where Arthur tries his luck on the Stand-up comedy scene but he couldn’t talk due to his “Laughing syndrome”, at one point he stops and holds his chest due to pain, which was a sad moment. On the next day, his idol Murray (Robert De Niro) makes fun of him which was the last straw for Arthur to snap. All, it takes is one minute for people to snap.

This movie really has so many things one could talk about but these are my thoughts. It is easy to mock someone but it is hard to be in their shoes. Before I end this post I would like to quote one of Arthur’s joke “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t”. Isn’t that the hard truth? Now, that there is so much awareness created around Mental illness, I strongly believe we will evolve ourselves as a better human being.

P.S: People dealing with Mental health issues please refrain yourselves from watching this movie, it triggers.

On that note, See you in the next review. Ciao :)

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Pratip Vijayakumar
Pratip Vijayakumar

Written by Pratip Vijayakumar

Sales Professional, Podcaster and an Amatuer writer. Wanted to start my own company someday

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