The Individuals’s Joker Evaluation: The Most Harmful Movie of the Yr?

Posted On Apr 5, 2024 By admin With Comments Off

Not since the golden years of Midnight Movies has a film played with as much cheeky subversion, with such punk rock f-ck you attitude as The People’s Joker. Director/writer/star Vera Drew, who saw the project through from conception to an against-all-odds (not to mention the ire of Warner Bros.) release, has made a movie equal parts fan letter and primal scream, announcing herself as an artist capable of daring feats.

Taken on its own terms, The People’s Joker represents a gobsmacking act of artistic determination. The heck with pseudo-intellectual lauds and Oscar wins—this is the movie Todd Phillips and his defenders thought he made in Joker.

Beyond Batman

The plot: a child named D*** (Drew obscures the character’s name throughout the film, except at key moments) grows up in Smallville, USA as a lover of Batman and stand-up comedy. The film uses computer animation to recreate scenes from Batman Forever, as D*** explains to the audience: “Most other boys wanted to be Val Kilmer, or fell in love with Nicole Kidman. I wanted to be Nicole Kidman.”

D*** dreams of leaving home and an overbearing mother behind to work in stand-up comedy. Depressed and miserable, sadistic psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane prescribes Smilex to D***, an inhaler drug that forces laughter and smiles no matter how awful a patient feels on the inside.

Flash forward to adulthood. D***, moves to Gotham City in hopes of landing a spot on UCB, an SNL-type sketch comedy show run by a computer animated Lorne Michaels (Maria Bamford). D*** quickly finds that the world of comedy thrives on hetero-maleness, jokes related to genital size and Tinder dates. It also wants nothing to do with a sexually confused small-town kid. Worse, pay-to-play classes and auditions make the wall around UCB almost impossible to leap. Bruce Wayne/Batman, now a celebrity kleptocrat, has banned comedy outside of the sketch show, which he happens to own.

D***, facing failure and growing questions about both sexuality and gender identity, befriends Oswald (Nathan Faustyn), another failed comic who goes by the stage name Penguin. The pair take up residence in an abandoned amusement park, resolving to start their own underground stand-up club, which they deem “anti-comedy.”

D*** also catches the eye of Mr. J/Jason Todd (Kane Distler), a fellow comic and transgender man. A budding love affair with Mr. J helps D*** come out as transgender, too. She flings herself into a vat of estrogen, re-emerging as Joker the Harlequin. Though the transition gives Joker some much-needed confidence on stage, Mr. J’s abuse and the ongoing battle with Batman/UCB forces Joker to hatch a plan to take Gotham by storm.

Cinematic Anarchy

Like the early films of Todd Haynes, David Lynch, and John Waters—three filmmakers Drew channels here—The People’s Joker remixes pop culture figures and movie tropes into a personal statement about life, show business, and love. And, like those three directors, Drew avoids one of the biggest pitfalls of low-budget productions. Filmmakers today often use digital techniques, drone footage, and computer animation to hide a movie’s bargain-basement resources.

Drew does the opposite: she embraces the rough edges of her production, using as a means to create an anarchic style. Bad green screen and Spirit Halloween store costumes somehow fit with this version of Gotham City, and with a story as strange as Joker’s. Drew tells her story with actors, of course, but also utilizes Mystery Science Theater 3000-type models, 2D and 3D animation, repurposed Barbie dolls, and puppetry. Visual and dialogue references to the Batman movies abound, as do throwbacks to geeky kiddie programming in general.

The People’s Joker recalls the stylized realities of Sid & Marty Kroft, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Disney Animation, and shows like Sesame Street that also merged different mediums as a storytelling device. The result might not look “real” in the traditional sense, but it isn’t supposed to. Instead, Drew uses her tricks as stand-ins for scenes she couldn’t actually film, as in the case of a chase/fight sequence that sees Batman and Joker rampaging all over Gotham.

The wild style of The People’s Joker further allows Drew—and the audience—to focus on the emotional truths of the story. On that level, the movie plays as sincere. It helps, of course, that as an actress Drew has a natural charisma to her. The scenes of young D*** (first played by Griffin Kramer, and later, by Drew) and his mother (Lynn Downey) have a real pathos to them, throbbing like exposed nerves. Drew doesn’t hesitate to share her real pain with the audience.

She doesn’t hesitate to show her rage, either. The People’s Joker, even at its funniest, thrives on Drew’s righteous anger—rage at a mother more concerned with her own happiness than that of her child; rage at showbiz rackets that bilk would-be performers out of money; rage at an abusive relationship; rage at a system that allows the wealthy to get away with everything from child molestation to murder.

Smashing The Mirror

The director saves some of her sharpest barbs for attempts at showbusiness “diversity” that uses queer and female performers as a shield to deflect criticism without affording talent like Joker (or, we suspect, Drew herself) to have a creative voice or control. The People’s Joker, like its title character, extends a massive middle finger to those who stood in Drew’s way.

Few movies have the level of chutzpah that Vera Drew flaunts in The People’s Joker, and even fewer make the kind of personal statement that the director has crafted here. Though a comment on Drew’s life, the movie never wobbles into vanity. On the contrary, Drew presents her avatar as a messy, troubled person, in no way aggrandizing the Joker as anything more than a deeply flawed character. Maybe for that reason, the surreal final scenes of the movie have a touching quality to them. As Joker the Harlequin makes peace with her past, so does the director.

So how to rate a movie that smashes so many conventions, a film so unconcerned with polish? The late Roger Ebert once observed that critics should take movies on their own terms. In other words, does a film achieve what it set out to do?

In the case of The People’s Joker, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” The movie manages to satirize Batman, Hollywood, angsty upbringings, coming out as queer, virtue signaling, showbiz gatekeepers, and more. It tells a story of catharsis with wicked humor, and even some genuinely moving moments. In contrast with Todd Phillips’ Joker, which substituted violence for insight, The People’s Joker zeroes in on the deeper thoughts first, dressing them up in wacky graffiti art.

Vera Drew may or may not prove herself a great director. She might not even direct another movie. Yet, in The People’s Joker, she has made a masterwork of sorts: a raw discharge of emotion and humor that beats Hollywood at its own game. How many clowns can say that?

Rating: 10/10 Specs. (And no, that’s not a joke.)

The People’s Joker opens in New York City April 5, with a release in select theatres nationwide on April 12.

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