Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, an impoverished professional clown whose aspirations as a stand-up comic are curtailed by bouts of uncontrollable laughter (a real condition called Pseudobulbar affect) and various other maladjustments. Another hindrance is that he isn’t funny, as corroborated by his ageing mother, Penny (Frances Conroy). Arthur is at the bottom of Gotham City’s food chain, emotionally and physically trodden on by children, his fellow clowns, corporate jocks, the billionaire philanthropist Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), and the talk-show host Murray Franklin (a miscast Robert De Niro). As Arthur receives blow after blow and uncovers troubling facts about his past, he surrenders to his violent urges. Word of his crimes against Gotham’s ‘élite’ rouses the city’s damaged and disenfranchised, giving rise to Arthur’s twisted alter ego, Joker.

Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck in Joker (photograph by Niko Tavernise/Roadshow Films)

Aside from the obvious comparisons between Phillips’s version of Joker and Martin Scorsese’s Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver, 1976) and Rupert Pupkin (The King of Comedy, 1982), Joker borrows imagery and set pieces from a number of films made since the 1970s, so much so that it feels like a Frankenstein’s monster, neatly sewn together from the highest quality cuts. Joker dances like a Clockwork Orange (1971) droog down a steep concrete stairway similar to the one Father Karras is hurled down in The Exorcist (1973). He weaves between train carriages and commuters to elude a pair of detectives on his trail, à la The French Connection (1971). He wails to the heavens like Howard Beale, as ‘mad as hell’, in Network (1976), and never before has a camera lens been more smitten with Joaquin Phoenix’s face since Her (2013).

Undoubtedly, it is Phoenix’s deeply committed physical performance as Arthur/Joker that carries the film. He twists, flails, and poses the thin, sinewy body he cultivated especially for this role. With that endlessly malleable, intriguing face, he morphs from childlike to birdlike, innocent to coldly sinister, in a heartbeat. Clearly, Phillips gave Phoenix free rein to improvise and fully inhabit his character. In one curious scene, Arthur, at a low point in the narrative, absent-mindedly empties his fridge, shelves and all, and climbs inside. When he closes the door behind him, the camera jolts from static to shaky hand-held mode, as though the cameraman suddenly exclaimed, ‘Wow, I wasn’t expecting that!’ When Arthur becomes Joker, he vibrates with righteous fury and gesticulates floridly, as though his new make-up, clothes, and persona have conferred upon him superpowers, or the hollow confidence of an alt-right ‘provocateur’.

Working in concert with Phoenix’s performance are the striking visuals. Joker’s world looks grimy and lived-in, and the CGI cityscape of art-deco Gotham is imposing and labyrinthine. The most recent iteration of visually incontinent DC superhero films often features a desaturated colour palette in a misguided attempt to convey a sense of ‘grittiness’ and realism. In DC’s Justice League (2017), the reverse was true; pathetically, the colours were saturated in post-production to capitalise on the success of the more lively Marvel superhero films. In Joker, cinematographer Lawrence Sher uses all the textures of powder, cosmetics, felt, and blood to hit the sweet spot of striking and grotesque.

Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck in Joker (photograph by Niko Tavernise/Roadshow Films)

Aside from the rich, bleak cello score by Icelandic artist Hildur Guðnadóttir (who recently provided the soundtrack to the excellent HBO Chernobyl series), the music was at times used inappropriately. It was off-putting to hear the triumphant, psychedelic ‘White Room’ by Cream or the upbeat ‘Laughing’ by The Guess Who as Joker danced and swaggered around like a film star, cigarette in hand, after committing yet another atrocity. Is the audience supposed to revel in his violence?

Todd Phillips has populated his film almost entirely with antagonists. A disturbing question arises: are we supposed to sympathise with this murderous clown? While it’s affecting to learn the myriad ways Arthur has been subjected to cruelty throughout his life, it is equally repulsive to see him act violently in response, especially in light of so many disturbed young men committing vile acts in the real world. However, Phillips doesn’t seem to be interested in moralising; as an artist, perhaps it’s not his job to do so. But the nervous giggling that followed Joker’s disturbing deeds at the screening I attended was slightly unnerving. After all, it only takes one clown …

Joker (DC/Warner Bros) is directed by Todd Phillips and in cinemas 3 October 2019.