The Joker movie - starring Joaquin Phoenix (MOD: May contain Spoilers)

Weltsmertz

lola85 wrote: »

Did he kill her though?

henryporter wrote: »

Definitely

tigger123 wrote: »

I didn't see any evidence of it. And am kind of baffled by the idea at all.

It is left deliberately open to interpretation. I think he did and it would be true to the character to do so. He only killed those that hurt him and she definitely did albeit unintentionally.
However showing him killing Sophie would have lost him a lot of sympathy with some members of the audience.
So. My interpretation. He did but the director or studio decided not to explicitly show it.

Sad Professor

xboxdad wrote: »

According to BBFC both BB and Joker are 15+.
That's why I'm trying to get a feel of how much "worse" Joker can be.

It's not like Breaking Bad, which was basically a morality play with cartoonish violence.

AllForIt

Didn't he only kill ppl he deemed to be bad ppl in themselves. Not criminally bad but just horrible ppl in life. Wasn't that the underlying message. So why would he kill Sophie? Unless maybe because she wouldn't talk to him because she thought he was weird.

pixelburp

Wait, what are people reading as being evidence that he killed his neighbour? We see him in her apartment which to me only served as the reveal that all those romantic moments were a fantasy. I didn't get a sense he was going to kill her, leaving aside her obvious fear that that may happen.

Drumpot

Necro wrote: »

I have the same opinion tbh re: critics. Far more interested in being PC than actually doing some critical analysis.

Rotten Tomatoes in particular has lost all credibility for me in the past 3-4 years.

I agree completely.

Just listening to Marc Bernard on fatman and he’s a script writer who also comes up with some dynamite stories and ideas that would of made movies better. But he has a massive chip on his shoulder when it comes to things he perceives as a race or political issue.

He mentioned scrip and movie not really having a clear story but didn’t really elaborate. He talked more about the fact he felt it was gloryfying the character and basically the movie was making out all the black people trying to help him were failures ( he meant showing all black characters in the negative ). I would of looked at it that the only people actually trying to help
Him were black people who didn’t have the resources or support themselves and yet they still represented the only hope he had in a horrible world.

I do feel like some of the reviews pick out things purely based on bias, probably down to the sub conscious political stance on some of the movies themes and some sort of cherished feelings towards movies that inspired it which affects their enjoyment of joker. I think anybody can find fault with most movies they don’t want to like or didn’t enjoy. But I think some York’s they can come up With all sorts of waffley ambiguous reasons that don’t need to objectively matter for an entertaining movie.

I’m not angry because I think we all do this at times , so it’s more a reflection that sometimes certain Critics fall into the pitfall of being human and therefore incapable of objectively reviewing a movie. But as somebody pointed out to me, nobody can really critic a movie without their own prejudice lens blind siding them so maybe that’s just a reminder of The subjectivity of judging movies.

I suppose a contradiction to my post is that I don’t think any of us should put much stock into critics reviews to be fair, by talking about them we are validating them on some level.

Sad Professor

pixelburp wrote: »

Wait, what are people reading as being evidence that he killed his neighbour? We see him in her apartment which to me only served as the reveal that all those romantic moments were a fantasy. I didn't get a sense he was going to kill her, leaving aside her obvious fear that that may happen.

Yeah I don't know where people are getting that from.

lola85

Weltsmertz wrote: »

It is left deliberately open to interpretation. I think he did and it would be true to the character to do so. He only killed those that hurt him and she definitely did albeit unintentionally.
However showing him killing Sophie would have lost him a lot of sympathy with some members of the audience.
So. My interpretation. He did but the director or studio decided not to explicitly show it.

How did she hurt him?

lola85

Did Randall give him to gun in good faith at the beginning?

And did he lie to the cops about Arthur asking for another gun?

xboxdad

Weltsmertz wrote: »

It's not so much that it's worse. And kids these days are exposed to so much screen violence that that would not be an issue.
But Joker has adult themes about alienation and disconnection and is a movie made for adults.
Don't think a 14 year old would get it. He would be bored. Possibly slightly disturbed as well.

Thank you. That's good information!

Drumpot

lola85 wrote: »

How did she hurt him?

She rejected him or didn’t give him the support he imagined she had. Imagine that , believing on some level a person supported you and then after a highly life changing moment you realise it was all in your head!

At the time I saw him in her house it made me think of something completely different but related to a characters fall. It’s actually in revenge of the sith when Anakin is in the Jedi temple and there is a bunch of kids hiding in a room. He comes in and I’m thinking “Ah no, he’s not gonna kill all those kids” and then he lights up his light sabre. The fact that there was no real indication that he killed them leaves it way more ambiguous.

The people he killed in the movie that we saw, actually hurt or insult him in real life. That’s the one thing that maybe has me thinking he didn’t hurt her.

ziedth

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah I don't know where people are getting that from.

Me too, I don't believe it is "left open to interpretation" like the ending is. There wasn't even a hint of him wishing to hurt her or that he would deem that she "deserved" it. Maybe the blow your brains out thing that he did but i don't see it at all and he even let the small clown fella go because he was always nice to him.

I also could have lived without the alley scene at the end. I didn't mind the story involving them as I groaned and eye rolled when he read the letters earlier in the film and it was a nice fake out. The alley scene was just a little too on the nose for what came before it.

cdgalwegian

I saw this film last weekend, and my initial reaction was it was powerful, in Phoenix's performance as well as in it's deliberate ambiguousness, relying much on the unreliable narrator aspect of Arthur Fleck. The unreliable narrator angle can be a divisive tool, but its use here made this film for me one which I have not thought about more after in a very long time. The question of unreliability- based on mental illness no longer treated with medication, and a series of traumatic events- makes interpretation of Fleck's actions cloudy, in view of the slowly increasing lack of credibility as to what was happening. My initial reaction after the film, which I still hold, was that Fleck died as a result of that fridge incident (which I think only one other poster commented on). Everything else was a fantasy. That fridge seemed to me the type that was outlawed in the States years ago that was banned because it locked on closing, resulting in deaths of children where they had been dumped in rubbish tips. In other words, the fridge was Fleck's soon-to-be coffin. Straight after the fridge scene he gets the call from the show researcher; the start of his prolonged fantasy.
I had wondered after the film why we were hit on the head with the montage of Fleck realizing his 'girlfriend' was not one- after the scene in her apartment- but then, in view of his fantasy while locked in the fridge, I realized this was his coming to this realization; we were just witnessing this from inside his head. (I could be corrected on the sequence of this though).
Everything makes sense to me from this hypothesis; I was going to go last night to see it again to test the hypothesis (plus to see it again anyway- I thought it was that good), particularly since my memory is pretty poor, but I never made it; I'm gonna try to see it again Monday (or maybe the following weekend). Another poster mentioned that Phoenix had alluded to maybe being in a sequel, but in relation to the hypothesis, that would be a marketing gimic; his character is dead; adding to the theory that Joker would/could be an inspiration for The Joker in the future. So, with one proviso, I thought it was a fantastic and provocative film; the proviso being that it was a standalone film- a sequel would be a travesty.

Pineapple1

cdgalwegian wrote:

I saw this film last weekend, and my initial reaction was it was powerful, in Phoenix's performance as well as in it's deliberate ambiguousness, relying much on the unreliable narrator aspect of Arthur Fleck. The unreliable narrator angle can be a divisive tool, but its use here made this film for me one which I have not thought about more after in a very long time. The question of unreliability- based on mental illness no longer treated with medication, and a series of traumatic events- makes interpretation of Fleck's actions cloudy, in view of the slowly increasing lack of credibility as to what was happening. My initial reaction after the film, which I still hold, was that Fleck died as a result of that fridge incident (which I think only one other poster commented on). Everything else was a fantasy. That fridge seemed to me the type that was outlawed in the States years ago that was banned because it locked on closing, resulting in deaths of children where they had been dumped in rubbish tips. In other words, the fridge was Fleck's soon-to-be coffin. Straight after the fridge scene he gets the call from the show researcher; the start of his prolonged fantasy. I had wondered after the film why we were hit on the head with the montage of Fleck realizing his 'girlfriend' was not one- after the scene in her apartment- but then, in view of his fantasy while locked in the fridge, I realized this was his coming to this realization; we were just witnessing this from inside his head. (I could be corrected on the sequence of this though). Everything makes sense to me from this hypothesis; I was going to go last night to see it again to test the hypothesis (plus to see it again anyway- I thought it was that good), particularly since my memory is pretty poor, but I never made it; I'm gonna try to see it again Monday (or maybe the following weekend). Another poster mentioned that Phoenix had alluded to maybe being in a sequel, but in relation to the hypothesis, that would be a marketing gimic; his character is dead; adding to the theory that Joker would/could be an inspiration for The Joker in the future. So, with one proviso, I thought it was a fantastic and provocative film; the proviso being that it was a standalone film- a sequel would be a travesty.

Interesting theory alright, I actually never questioned his climbing into the fridge thing at all to myself....

pixelburp

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

The ambulance sirens following immediately after implied it.

Honestly I don't remember that run on, so I have my doubts it was some form of the Kuleshov effect at play. This was not a subtle film at all in its Text, so I really doubt there was any intentional implication Arthur killed the neighbour. Every other death was on screen, and that apartment scene filled a very specific purpose (again, not intended as subtle).

SJW Lover

Weltsmertz wrote: »

It is left deliberately open to interpretation. I think he did and it would be true to the character to do so. He only killed those that hurt him and she definitely did albeit unintentionally.
However showing him killing Sophie would have lost him a lot of sympathy with some members of the audience.
So. My interpretation. He did but the director or studio decided not to explicitly show it.

When he walks out of the shrink you see bloody footprints and he is then chased by a Guard so he definitely killed her.


With his "girlfriend" it shows him walking quickly up the hall to his room yet shows no footprints. Also, remember he spared the midget as he was the only one in his workplace who had been nice to him. Ergo, i think he just left the girlfriend's apartment without killing her.

niallo32

AllForIt wrote: »

Didn't he only kill ppl he deemed to be bad ppl in themselves. Not criminally bad but just horrible ppl in life. Wasn't that the underlying message. So why would he kill Sophie? Unless maybe because she wouldn't talk to him because she thought he was weird.

That was my take on it. Don't think for a second he killed her.

pixelburp

I'm not even sure there was a reason behind Joker's killing. Maybe that was the point, nodding towards this idea of him as a Force of Nature & unpredictable, but IMO the execution was confused. It was super muddled what the takeaway was meant to be; one minute him confessing about enjoying the accidental killing of the yuppies, but then his big speech at DeNiros character more of a political screed at the Establishment abandoning the unwell. I get this Joker was meant to be spiralling but I never got the sense I knew where he was heading. The same could be said of Ledgers zealot to chaos, but at least there was consistency in that chaos.

In fact learning that the bathroom dance scene was improvised, I wonder how much of Joker was the script, and how much was Phoenix "exploring" the character and improvising. Dialogue too like, I'm wondering if Phoenix was just riffing half the time, everyone just delighted at how much Acting he was doing ?

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

I suspect Phillips wanted to show those deaths but knew he'd get backlash because those particular victims didn't deserve it so he had to strongly imply it instead. I also suspect studio interference there too. At the end especially, when he leaves bloody footprints there's really no other way to interpret that...

Naw, I honestly think that's projection. Sure at the end the implication is strong that he killed - or at least assaulted - that doctor but it's hard to ignore as you say, bloody footprints. There was literally no cues to suggest the neighbor was killed, beyond a tenuous cut to an ambulance. IMO that's a stretch. It was barely the Kuleshov. Maybe if we saw an ominous shadow, a door closed slowly... some visual clue. Naw, sorry, can't agree with this theory at all.

tigger123

There's nothing at all to imply he killed her. And this film doesn't shy away from showing difficult things at all. It's a gritty, horrible mess. If he did, it would have been made much more clear.

Weltsmertz

lola85 wrote: »

How did she hurt him?

Drumpot wrote: »

She rejected him or didn’t give him the support he imagined she had. Imagine that , believing on some level a person supported you and then after a highly life changing moment you realise it was all in your head!
.

The deepest hurt and pain some men experience is rejection by someone they love. So she did indeed hurt him deeply. And given that he killed others for much less I think it is logical and indeed necessary given his character that he did kill her. I suspect studio interference was the reason it had to be hinted at rather than shown explicitly.

Mrcaramelchoc

Just saw it tonight.an amazing film with an oscar winning performance from Joaquin,but what the hell de niro was doing there i don't know.
he brought nothing to it.everything he touches these days turns to ****.they could have found an unknown that would have done better.
It was the only bad aspect to an excellent movie.

tylercheribini

Mrcaramelchoc wrote: »

Just saw it tonight.an amazing film with an oscar winning performance from Joaquin,but what the hell de niro was doing there i don't know.
he brought nothing to it.everything he touches these days turns to ****.they could have found an unknown that would have done better.
It was the only bad aspect to an excellent movie.

Intertexuality.

Weltsmertz

tylercheribini wrote: »

Intertexuality.

The King of comedy.

Pineapple1

SJW Lover wrote:

With his "girlfriend" it shows him walking quickly up the hall to his room yet shows no footprints. Also, remember he spared the midget as he was the only one in his workplace who had been nice to him. Ergo, i think he just left the girlfriend's apartment without killing her.

But when he was sitting in the Girlfriend's apartment and spooked her, he turned to her and slowly gestured a "gun" to his head (like in the earlier scene in the elevator) with a deranged look on his face. She then put her hand to her mouth in fear of what she knew was now about to come for her, she knew he really was going to shoot her with a real gun. Thats my interpretation of it now since reading this thread.

Pineapple1

Mrcaramelchoc wrote:

Just saw it tonight.an amazing film with an oscar winning performance from Joaquin,but what the hell de niro was doing there i don't know. he brought nothing to it.everything he touches these days turns to ****.they could have found an unknown that would have done better. It was the only bad aspect to an excellent movie.

I see where you are coming from and I kind of agree. I thought there was something not quite right about de niro in that role. Like it was nearly given to him to help pull in the audience numbers (not that it needed him to, the movie itself with JP leading was brilliant) and De Niro kind of acted the role half arsed as a result.

Drumpot

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

I'll ask you a question: why do you think she and her daughter never appeared for the remainder of the film?

Because his own fantasy had been shattered so he wasn’t imagining himself with her anymore ?

Just giving an answer to your question by the way, I don’t know if she was killed or not. I think there was a connection between the train murders, his workmate and the talk show host. They all insulted, bullied/manipulated and teased him, she never did anything to him. Maybe he felt embarrassed in her house but it doesn’t really fit in with the other murders that felt more revenge orientated.

The gun to head gesture could of been just a throwback to when she did it in the lift. There are ways to explain away the “he killed her narrative”, I don’t think it’s that clear cut.

tylercheribini

Pineapple1 wrote: »

I see where you are coming from and I kind of agree. I thought there was something not quite right about de niro in that role. Like it was nearly given to him to help pull in the audience numbers (not that it needed him to, the movie itself with JP leading was brilliant) and De Niro kind of acted the role half arsed as a result.

If you are going to rip off/homage two De Niro movies so heavily the least you can do is include him in this film.

Pineapple1

Drumpot wrote:

The gun to head gesture could of been just a throwback to when she did it in the lift. There are ways to explain away the “he killed her narrativeâ€, I don’t think it’s that clear cut.

Yeah but did you see the facial expression on him though in this scene with the gun to head gesture? He was completely serious about it this time, no messing about compared to when he exited the lift with her earlier on, and had a smile on him then.