Joker (2019): 8 Major Problems No One Wants To Admit

6. The Story Never Sells Arthur's Downfall

By far one of the most frustrating things about Joker is that, unlike Taxi Driver, the film never really sells Arthur's downfall. There are several triggers for his descent into full-blown mania, but there's never a sense of escalation, and without escalation, there's no momentum.

At the start of the film, we see Arthur is freelancing as a clown for hire. He gets beaten up by a bunch of youths at the beginning before we're introduced to his psychologist. We're told that his medication isn't doing anything and that his treatment has hit a brick-wall, but the film never really lends any weight to that first interaction. Instead, Arthur heads back to work, where he's then given a gun by an ill-intentioned co-worker, and it causes him to lose his job.

Another trigger, yes, but there's not a steady sense of decline at this point.

Hours after losing his job, Arthur gets beaten up by three yuppies while they sing 'Send in the Clowns'. It's pleasant to see they're in on the irony of the occasion, but it's here where Arthur first lashes out in self-defence; he shoots two of the men who are attacking him, and then guns down the third in cold blood. This, in essence, is his first act as the Joker.

From then on in, any sense of escalation to Arthur's decline is repeatedly stymied by the plot's structure. For Arthur himself it feels like a constant flatline of depression, and it's not until he reads his mother's letter, learns of her diagnosis and realises that - in one of the film's few truly great moments - his relationship with Sophie has been a figment of his own imagination, that things truly take a turn for the worse.

But, before then and even after, the film meanders and plateaus. If the intent was to make it seem as though Arthur always was the Joker and that these various triggers (going on medication, losing his medication, discovering his connection to Thomas Wayne, etc.), had little to no effect, then more power to Joker. As it stands though, as a character study about one man's descent into madness, the film's story fails.