That's al slight as concrete evidence, but in the framing of the Waynes being essential and a need to not trust everything you see, it's a distinctly open possibility that Thomas Wayne aggressively covered up the truth that Arthur Fleck was his son. As a whole riot of men wearing masks terrorizes Gotham, there's one alternate possibility to this so-dubbed "origin". yet the crazy riot group (whom the rich elite in Gotham were trying to demonize) were urging Joker to "get up" as he was lying on the car hood after they saved him from police. We explain what was really happening and what it means. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Joker2019. What was real and what was just in Arthur Fleck's head? Both star Robert De Niro as a deranged social outcast driven to crime - a mentally ill vet and wannabe standup comic, respectively - and paint an unsettling portrayal of the characters' mental states, making the audience question the reality of what's been shown before an ending that skews fantastical, giving the protagonist an unearned happy ever after. The Nakayama Handicap. Arthur discovers a letter from his mother saying that he is Thomas Wayne's illegitimate son, but soon after confronting Thomas about it he was told of Penny's true colors and his adoption. The card Arthur gives to the lady on the bus explaining his laugh says that it's a condition that stems from mental disorders or brain injuries, foreshadowing that his condition is actually from brain trauma and not from mental illness. When they hide in your bed/closet/hamper and scare you, it isn't because it gives them any sort of thrill, but simply because it is their job. And if you believe the above-mentioned crimes against Arthur's mom, even worse than that? The whole Occupy-esque protest subplot that simmers under the movie and when they raise up Arthur as some sort of messiah, the community becomes one. It's entirely possible that the delusional Penny wrote the note herself... but also equally possible that Thomas Wayne used his connections and money to get Arthur's adoption papers faked as part of a scheme to discredit Penny, so he could get out of supporting her and Arthur. Although originally envisioned as a one-off with a clear beginning, middle, and end, Phillips has indicated that he has ideas for a sequel if Joaquin Phoenix is on-board for it — and while he hasn't made any promises, the actor has stated that he was interested in further exploring this iteration of the character. She was once a loyal follower to Scar who sought to avenge him after his first defeat and take back the Pride … The line was slightly ad-libbed by Joaquin Phoenix (the line as originally written said "a system"), so it's not clear if he was doing this deliberately. Yahoo Sports. Did Arthur really have the Pseudobulbar Affect (and if so, was it caused by the head injuries he endured as a child) or, as he claims, was he genuinely finding it all funny and had always been trying to suppress it? The comedy club that Arthur performs at is called "Pogo's", no doubt a reference to the most infamous real-world, When Arthur first steps out on stage as Joker for Murray's show, Joaquin Phoenix seems to be channeling some of, One of Murray’s guests is named Ethan Chase, a reference to Zach Galifianakis’s character in director Todd Phillips’, And assuming that's true, the line "Do I look like the kind of clown that could start a movement?" He writes in his journal that the worst part of having a mental illness is being expected to behave as if you don't have one. On a speech, Galavan declined candidacy, but after the hit-men "attacked" him in front of everyone but "missed" every single shot. Joe Chill. The last time we see it, Arthur has become Joker and is descending them in bright, sunny weather, dancing in absolutely confident joy. We later learn that she is delusional and not only lied about this, but also about Arthur's adoption. We're here to explain what exactly was going on in Todd Phillips' very-against-type comic book movie - and what it really means. From that point on, Arthur comes to almost accept it, killing his mother and losing all lock of clarity on the world that the discovery almost gave him. Other cast members include Marc Maron, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, and Shea Whigham. Thomas Wayne is definitely more arrogant than his usual depiction, though how much of an asshole he is is left up to the viewer's interpretation of Penny's experience. Arthur attempts to justify his murders as this, though his threshold for what constitutes an evil person falls dramatically over the course of the film as he generalizes that all people are rotten. The obvious conclusion between Arthur and his mother is that they both share a genetic brain defect that causes them to act, Sophie was never dating Arthur puts their previous interactions in a new light. but he and his wife did not deserve to be gunned down. All of this save his depression is revealed to be untrue, however. Why not in his jacket pocket or in a hidden holster? An identical shot happens at the end, when a satisfied Joker watches the city burn from a police car. Is Thomas Wayne genuine about his desire to make Gotham a better place and help the downtrodden despite his arrogant behavior, or is he just a lying power-hungry elitist? — Arkham Psychiatrist. At least with me he always is and was ! In this world, "Joker" starts off as a word Murray uses to mock Arthur while playing his comedy club tape. True Story Explained, Mortal Kombat Theory: Cole Young Is Secretly Scorpion Reborn. Zira is the main antagonist of The Lion King II: Simba's Pride and a guest antagonist in The Lion Guard, serving as the main antagonist of the Season 1 episode Lions of the Outlands and the posthumous overarching antagonist of the series finale Return to the Pride Lands. The final scenes in the asylum cast doubt on the "reality" of everything we've seen and veers into surreality. Arthur's is cheap and weathered, while Bruce's is finer and in better condition, highlighting how they're connected beyond their status. He did so because he believed the two teams were planning to kill Wanda after she lost control of her powers and accidentally killed Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Vision. —, "Stop laughin', you freak. immediately before killing Thomas Wayne during a riot. After killing the men on the subway, Arthur tries to come to terms with his actions with an interpretive dance. But now I realize... "What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner. However, this is subverted by Arthur killing his neighbor, since she's never been anything but nice to him; even though it's only implied that Arthur killed her and nothing is shown, the sirens and Arthur laughing paint a vivid picture. Is it Bruce Wayne, the legitimate son now robbed of his innocence as a result of Arthur's actions? When Arthur and Bruce meet, they're wearing jackets that are a similar shade of brown. He shoots and kills three Wayne Industries employees when attacked on a train, sparking a working-class protest movement, and comes to believe that businessman-turned-politician Thomas Wayne is his father. Sure, Murray, have a clown-faced man on your show without screening him for weapons while there are clown-themed riots happening all over the city. "I used to think that my life was a tragedy. Arthur viewed from behind with his arms outstretched becomes an. I'll tell you what you get. When he finally appears on the show, he tells a different joke to Murray and instead of shooting himself in the head, he shoots Murray himself in the head. Did the clown-masked rioters raise their accidental creator up as a messiah figure? When Arthur plays with his gun for the first time, he briefly points it at Penny's couch. By the time he finishes, he's calmed himself and may even feel he actually brought some street justice on the men, he's sporting the pose for the first time. Early life. In The Killing Joke, Joker infamously states "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. A one-stop shop for all things video games. Presuming that anything that happened in the last third of the film is real. Joker is a 2019 comic book-inspired tragedy/crime film directed by Todd Phillips and co-written by himself & Scott Silver (The Fighter, 8 Mile), based on the DC Comics character of the same name. That's the difference between bleak and cynical or tragic and just. He then attempted to kill his hostages and spread Joker Venom all over the city to cause everyone’s in Gotham to die laughing. In Joker, Phillips plays with reality in a very similar manner to Scorsese. • Kill a sheep, and then press its steaming lungs on either side of the head. lol just curious :b. secretsofarockett: It’s kinda hard to explain but he makes you feel special that’s for sure lol and he’s sweet and gentle. But what's more powerful is the scope of the film and how this one Joker is far from the single villain with this particular modus operandi. message sent from Anonymous. Here's what was really happening during Joker's ending. It is worth noting that throughout the film we never actually see him doing anything constructive to uplift Gotham's people out of poverty — he mostly alternates between taking his family out to film screenings and giving condescending interviews. The killer is not named or seen, but those familiar with the source material will know that he is Joseph Chilton a.k.a. Joker ends with Arthur locked up in Arkham Asylum, once again receiving unhelpful care, and this time far beyond help. The audience is led to believe she is, but that's simply because we're seeing his fantasies play out as if they're real. What is the joke? Largely, antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and sociopathy are not treated by psychiatrists. This one hurts, so I'll keep things short: In Monsters, Inc., Randall said that humans were known to catch, kill, and skin monsters, ultimately using their fur as toilet seat covers. after Arthur watches his mother getting sent to the hospital for a stroke, and he's interrogated by a pair of detectives suspicious about his possible connections to the subway murders, he slams into an automatic door trying to walk away and spends a few moments trying to get it to work (not realizing he's trying to enter through an exit door until one of the detectives points it out). Theo also introduced Silver St. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. We finally see the effect in full force during the film's climax, where Joker is standing on top of a police car and spreading his arms to the thousands of protestors cheering him on. When Arthur doesn't respond in shock, indicating that he himself never truly believed they were together, that's when we finally know that it had actually only been Arthur fantasizing about her all along. Arthur delivers a spiteful one to Murray on his talk show under the thin guise of a second joke. Arthur even says he felt like he has "never existed". The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. Randall decides to give a gun to Arthur, the coworker everybody at the clown-for-hire business regards as creepy, then throws Arthur under the bus when the gun lands him in trouble. Monsters, Inc. is the fourth animated film produced by Pixar.It was directed by Pete Docter and was released on November 2, 2001.. While rehearsing what he's going to do on Murray's talk show, Arthur thinks of doing a knock-knock joke and then pulling a gun out to shoot himself in the head. She craves a massive stygian dong become absent-minded spinal column fill her tight snatch all make an issue of way round make an issue of balls, and she gets it!. Murray Franklin lightly mocked Arthur on national TV, but he also carried no malice toward him (except for, quite understandably, when Arthur casually admitted on live TV to. The entire sequence where we flash back to Arthur and Sophie together, which reveals that she was never with him in the first place. Both pay dearly for it. As naturalistic as the film appears at first, that starts to fray as Arthur's mind splinters. kills his own mother by smothering her with a pillow after years of neglect. When he goes to her apartment again, her apartment number is different, meaning that all his interactions with her were just fantasies. The riot caused by Murray's murder occurs as Thomas, Martha and Bruce are leaving a movie theater playing Zorro, the Gay Blade (and Excalibur, a surprising reference to Batman v Superman). After getting thrown into Arkham and murdering his therapist, the film ends with Arthur playing cat-and-mouse with an orderly. Thomas Wayne is presented far from the polished philanthropist many are used to; his sleazy manner and political run conjure up Donald Trump parallels (Alec Baldwin was once linked to the part), yet his use of "clowns" as a derogatory term reclaimed by those insulted instead reminds of Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" statement during the 2016 election. Randall and Murray Franklin were jerks to Arthur (to varying degrees) but their jerkishness stopped well short of Penny's child abuse/neglect and the three WayneTech suits who tag-teamed Arthur on the subway. You get what you f*cking deserve." And, even though it's not focused heavily on, that photo of the family torn from the newspaper with a shy Bruce in the corner is in his notebook before shooting Murray, a reminder and possible motivator. It has often been referred to as "Joker Syndrome," since it mimics both the clown and the effect of his poison gas. Kellen Winslow II to … Arthur shoots Murray Franklin in the head during Murray's own talk show, shouting, The three drunken Wall Street guys that Arthur kills are poorly singing at one point before they terrorize him. Much of how she treats and talks to Arthur is noticeably very. For one, the gunman is specifically targeting Thomas Wayne for his words and actions against the working class; Martha's pearls are destroyed as a by-product. The protesters start calling themselves "clowns" and wearing clown masks everywhere after Thomas Wayne contemptuously refers to them as such on TV. was in, When in Sophie's apartment, Arthur mumbles "I had a really bad day", seemingly in reference to, Murray Franklin's show, aesthetically, is extremely similar to, The police car that collects Arthur has the licence plate 9189, an anagram of 1989, the year the Tim Burton. All of this seems to be evidence that the movie just witnessed was unreal. The meeting between Arthur and Bruce. Arthur politely encourages him to leave, and when tip-toeing past Arthur does a fake-out lunge to scare him. Was the reaction to Murray's murder truly so destructive? The film is, as much a DC adaptation, a mashup of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. Those are the only parts of Joker that are explicitly in Arthur's head, but you're certainly meant to be left asking that of the finale also. It's not a leap to have any of these characters be deemed the Joker. Both wrong him in some way. Jodie Foster has no idea why she got a shoutout in Aaron Rodgers' MVP speech. Screen Rant's Managing Editor, Alex Leadbeater has been covering film online since 2012 and been a permanent fixture of SR since 2016. And it's Fleck that the police want. UAE $375K 1d 11h 28m 47s . Call the police." Arthur kills every single parental figure he has throughout the movie, directly murdering his mother, Penny, and Murray, whom he looked up to like a father figure, while the riots he incited lead to the death of Thomas Wayne, who may or may not be his biological father. After he finds out the truth about Penny and what she's done to him, Arthur kills her just before he goes on Murray's show. The entire production team of Murray Franklin's show, including the man himself. Is it on the psychiatrist herself, who Arthur presumably murders based on the red blood coating the soles of his shoes in the final scene? Of course, the complete truth is even murkier; Fleck killed two of the employees in self-defense and the last. Arthur meets his first three victims while they gang up to harass a woman in a subway train before turning to gang up on him; he kills the first two in self-defense, and many Gotham citizens fully agree they got what they deserved. This proves that it wasn't delusion or hallucination as a result of going off his meds, contrary to popular belief, but mere fantasy that the audience is played into believing as true. The veracity of this claim is left open in the comic - he fails to break Jim Gordon, yet in the end Batman shares a laugh (and possible strangles his foe) - but Joker fully refutes it: Arthur is no sane man to begin with and his breakdown is a gradual one instigated from trauma at a very young age. Arthur is then arrested and gets locked up in Arkham, having completely lost his mind —. Or, alternatively, rather than being true, is this just a metaphorical representation of the. Jodie Foster is a big Packers fan. But as we'll see, even in that moment there are some big questions left about what we're shown, not least the chilling image in his mind of a young boy stood above his dead parents... Related: Everything That’s Gone Wrong On Joker’s Press Tour. ", "And besides, you can imagine what people would say about Thomas, and me, and...what they'd say about you." refusing to believe Arthur's story that the teens simply jumped him, Saul Bass version of the Warner Bros. logo, Arthur Fleck has given himself up to the Joker. The cast also includes Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne, Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond, Frances Conroy as Arthur's mother Penny, and Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin, a talk show host. Batman has always been born out of his city's darkness, but Joker has the suffering it takes to get there be directly linked to Gotham's sudden collapse, a sign of things having to go to their horrific apex before salvation. The Waynes are killed because of the clown movement, and the real Joker will, if this is true, rise out from it. This remaining question may seem intended to go unanswered, highlighting how even after two hours in his presence, Joker is still ultimately unknowable. 2 notes & what's jake virtanen like to hook up with? But the kid's mom has every right to be wary of any stranger her child interacts with, especially in a, Murray is not exactly wrong to call out Arthur for the increasing crime in the city. As Gotham burns, the Waynes bleed out and Arthur hides his final joke, there's an unsettling sense that far too much of the previous two hours were a figment of the villain's imagination. Cloud to Bruce Wayne. D: Robert Altman, W: Robert Altman. He once asked Tom Cruise about his supposedly fake-butt in Valkyrie (he swore it was all real). It would be debatable if these were fantasies or full-on mentally ill delusions and hallucinations if Sophie wondering who he is when he enters her apartment were to trigger any kind of surprise or upset in Arthur, but they don't. Similarly, Thomas Wayne's comments about how people who hide behind masks are "cowards" and that he'll kill Arthur if he ever touches his son Bruce again are both obvious nods towards the eventual future of Gotham, and the inevitable, "Come on, Murray. But that is the closest to a truth in Arthur Fleck's life that can be reached. Instead, it is an Elseworlds story that uses elements of Batman lore to tell an original story. He shoots Murray (Robert De Niro) in the head on live television, becoming the poster child of riots that, among other crimes, kill the Waynes. Related: Why Actors Take Playing Joker So Seriously. But the film's angling from the perspective of that mentally-ill loner makes it more internal and the case study more extreme. But more importantly, this entire sorry state of affairs is sparked by Arthur Fleck - his murder of the Wayne employees was laying the gunpowder, now his on-air execution has lit the fuse. It targets the ills of Gotham directly at young Bruce - a character who, in his single previous appearance, was shown as incredibly passive almost as if medicated. Did he really kill Randall in his flat? Now, this isn't the first time this has happened in media: Batman 1989 had a young Jack Napier stand-in for Joe Chill, and a pre-makeup criminal played a key role in Phantasm's origin which ran parallel to Bruce's journey of discovery. murdering the three tormenting him on the train, The kiss is later revealed to have never actually happened. Starring Roger Moore I say boo to Beau Maverick. Though it's the Joker that the anarchists revere and support, not Fleck. The Jai Alai Park Handicap. Joker's ending leaves the truth of the DC villain's origin almost as mysterious as before it began. Arthur blames "a society" for his downfall, echoing the "we live in a society" memes that are associated with the Joker. The biggest, though, are the sequences where Arthur's mind takes over. One of the most well-worn memes about Joker is that the film's ultimate message is simply "we live in a society", but that's a rather reductive lesson to take. It is implied that Arthur kills or at least injures his psychiatrist at Arkham State Hospital in the ending. Related: All 30 Upcoming & In-Development DC Films, All of these questions are rooted in Joker's final scene, earlier determined as one of the film's undisputed moments of reality. The collective damage is the true cost. Batman: The Killing Joke is a 1988 DC Comics one-shot graphic novel featuring the characters Batman and the Joker written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. We see this first with his fantasy about being an audience member of the Murray Franklin show and having an intimate moment with his hero, but it's used against the audience later and with much more subtlety with Sophie and his increasingly intimate interactions with her. The audience is only subtly clued in that it's a fantasy and not a memory of Arthur actually being on the show some time in the past when he's revealed to be sitting on his mother's bed still watching the TV, with the fantasy ending as the show ends. And Bruce seems to be quite an unhappy boy even before the death of his parents, which implies that he also leads a bleak life his wealth notwithstanding, The only reason he's as much of a "threat" as he is is because people impose and project their own fears and/or needs upon him—everyone assumes that the three Wayne employees were murdered to make a political statement, and are quite surprised when Arthur explains he killed them ". It comes up later when, as he's struggling to pry his mom's hospital records from a clerk's hands, him smashing his head against the barrier gets the clerk to loosen his grip out of shock. Is it what he inspired, and how with nary a motivation the Joker ideology was able to tear Gotham apart? Arthur has to walk up a huge set of stairs to get home every day, and every time he does it, he's hunched over and sluggish, like he's being weighed down by life's harsh realities. For tropes regarding the 2008 graphic novel of the same title, refer to that page. All of this seems to explicitly point to him not actually having this condition but simply having a strange sense of humor that his mother convinced him was a mental illness. —, "Call the police, Gene. But this is nevertheless a striking, seismic twist on the comics. However, a scene in which Arthur finds a tender note to Penny from "TW" muddies the waters somewhat. For example, we see late in the film his entire relationship with his neighbor Sophie was fabricated in his mind. We're shown Arthur's tendency to daydream and fantasize early on in the film even while he's still on his meds, and there's no evidence that Arthur ever truly believed that Sophie was his girlfriend. Did Joker Have A Forensic (Non-Psychiatric Diagnosis?) The police car with Arthur in it gets suddenly T-boned by protesters in a hijacked ambulance truck. Batman managed to stop the gas, save the hostages and arrest Joker. Both of his faces are an absolutely perfect imitation of the theatrical masks of comedy and tragedy (even down to the tear falling from the right eye), themes that are crucial in Arthur's character. Was the reaction to Murray's murder truly so destructive? Or is he just the inspiration for another, unknown man to take up the true mantle? Considering how bad Gotham is and how cruel everyone comes off in the movie, Arthur certainly makes a good point too about how people are so mean to each other without knowing what other people are going through. There's no "What are you talking about? Arthur Fleck is wanted by the police for first-degree murders but the support he gets from the wave of clown-masked anarchists he inspired to rise up against the corporate elite rich are able to cancel out and overshadow the relatively small power the police has over Fleck. Earlier in the film, the Wall Street kids (whom every rich elite in Gotham were trying to victimize) told Arthur to "stay down" as he was lying on the floor while they were beating him up. Arthur is a chronic daydreamer who fantasizes about being closer with people than he really is. It's so severe they're both hospitalized, in critical condition. Arthur occasionally bashes his head into things when releasing pent-up aggression, and doesn't seem any worse for wear after the fact. We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties, ♫ That's life (that's life), and I can't deny it, UsefulNotes/Academy Award for Best Film Editing, UsefulNotes/Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, UsefulNotes/Academy Award for Best Picture, Literature/1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, It is worth noting that we only ever see both characters through the perspective of an embittered, mentally-disturbed individual with an. But that's neat, and the world of Joker is ragged and from the very start paints it as a distinct possibility. Arthur is legally barred from owning a gun and gets fired for carrying one, though he does live in a. Arthur rants that people only care about the three men he killed because they were yuppies that worked for the richest man in the city, and no one would care if he was the one killed. his own grasp of what is actually happening is suspect, They never face any repercussions for this, Murray Franklin receives his comeuppance as well. Arthur being incarcerated at Arkham at the end of the movie shows that the GCPD managed to arrest him and quell the riot. Related: Why Joker Is Facing Backlash Despite The Great Reviews. Arthur was adopted by Penny, has no relation to Thomas Wayne and was horribly abused by his foster mother's boyfriend. In the DC Comics continuity, it's established that. Arthur repeats Sophie's "shoot myself in the head" gesture back at her after they meet in the elevator, providing us two instances of Foreshadowing. Near the end of the movie, Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down in an alley by a man wearing a clown mask. The officers pursuing Arthur get one from the subway riding clown mob later on. Murray even asks him if he is part of the protestors only for Arthur to say he is just dressed as a clown. Then, after Arthur admits on national television that he killed at least three people, Murray's response is to angrily antagonize him further which leads to Arthur killing him as a punchline. Except this isn't the Batman origin we're accustomed to. So, Arthur himself is the joke. As Murray points out, it's filled with self-pity and justifications for his actions, but it's still true. Growing up in the English countryside on a mixture of Star Wars, The Simpsons and Aardman, Alex is a lifelong movie obsessive. We have one man, lost to his psychosis and doomed to fight forever in his soft-focus asylum, and an unclear future for the world that both created and suffered him. It's a strange edit, apart from where Arthur's mind is presented as having gone; he's still concerned with the Waynes, that one double-murder out of all the pain and hurt caused is the pinnacle for him.