Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Josh Pais, Rocco Luna, Marc Maron, Sondra James, Murphy Guyer, Douglas Hodge, Dante Pereira-Olson, Sharon Washington, Brian Tyree Henry. Screenplay: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver. Cinematography: Lawrence Sher. Production design: Mark Friedberg. Film editing: Jeff Groth. Music: Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Todd Phillips's Joker is an unpleasant and occasionally clumsily made movie held together by Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar-winning characterization of the psychotic Arthur Fleck, who becomes at least one of the avatars of the Batman comics character called the Joker. But whatever its defects, Joker also seems to be very much of the moment -- the moment of post-Covid-19 civil unrest and societal divisions, abetted by corrupt and ineffective leadership. It's an ugly film about ugly attitudes, and although it strives to build a psychological explanation for Arthur Fleck's transformation into murderous, anarchic loner, the explanation is pat and clichéd. Phoenix is a great film actor, but to my mind he's much better in movies that call for humanity rather than monstrosity, like Spike Jonze's Her (2013) or James Gray's underrated We Own the Night (2007). Arthur Fleck is an Oscar-milking role, with grotesque body transformation and a plethora of overstated moments. Phillips's film calls for none of the dark humor that Heath Ledger gave his Joker in The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) or the entertaining flamboyance of Jack Nicholson's version of the character in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Philips has modeled Arthur Fleck in part on two characters from Martin Scorsese's movies, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) and Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy (1982), and cheekily cast the man who played both, Robert De Niro, in his film. De Niro gives Phoenix someone his equal to play against, but echoing better movies is never a good idea. Zazie Beetz, a fine actress, is wasted in her role as the neighbor on whom Arthur develops an unsavory attraction, and Phillips muddles the revelation that their scenes together are mostly in Arthur's imagination. The denouement of the film is predictably cataclysmic, but Phillips flubs his ending scene of Arthur confined to the Arkham mental hospital by suggesting rather confusingly that he escapes -- presumably to set up a sequel -- and following it with Frank Sinatra's version of Steven Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," a wistful song meant to be ironic in this context but really only thuddingly obvious, like much of the rest of the film.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017)

Colin Farrell in The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Steven Murphy: Colin Farrell
Anna Murphy: Nicole Kidman
Martin: Barry Keoghan
Kim Murphy: Raffey Cassidy
Bob Murphy: Sunny Suljic
Matthew Williams: Bill Camp
Martin's Mother: Alicia Silverstone

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Screenplay: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Cinematography: Thimios Bakatakis
Production design: Jade Healy
Film editing: Yorgos Mavropsaridis

This is only the third film by Yorgos Lanthimos that I've seen, but I'd say that he and his screenwriting partner, Efthymis Filippou, have a beef with people who play god. In Dogtooth (2009) it was the parents who attempt to create their own utopia by keeping their children ignorant of the outside world. In The Lobster (2015) it was the manager of the hotel that purports to find its residents new mates. And in The Killing of a Sacred Deer it's that archetypal god-player, the surgeon, who finds that the son of a patient he may have killed on the operating table has a mysterious power over him and his family. Behind this film lies a Greek myth about hubris, specifically the story of the punishment meted out by the gods to the house of Atreus, as reflected in the Euripedean tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis, which is referred to in the film as well as its title. But Lanthimos isn't interested in a direct transmutation of the Greek legend into modern terms. His film is a droll, underplayed, and often quite chilling tale that keeps one foot in reality while plaguing the characters with forces that come out of myths about the Fates and the Furies. It's as creepy as any horror movie you can name, but because the cast is so skilled at underplaying I found myself laughing -- a little nervously, yes -- at the absurdities in which their characters found themselves as much as I was flinching at the mental and physical pain they were undergoing. Sex in the film is a kind of torment: Anna Murphy seems to be able to get off only by first lying in an awkward position, dangling from the bed, and she is forced to give the rather unpleasant anesthesiologist (who may have been the one who really killed the patient) a hand job to gain information about their tormentor. That tormentor, Martin, seems to have an attraction to Steven Murphy that he tries to fulfill by pimping out his own mother. Much is made of the fact that Kim, the daughter, is having her first period. And so on. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is such an accumulation of odd details that it almost founders underneath them, and if you're looking for a conventional narrative payoff, go elsewhere. But there is a strange genius at work here, and I'm eager to see more from Lanthimos, including The Favourite, which is getting extraordinary attention now in awards season.