There's a great film here, it's just not called Joker and actually has some balls. Joaquin Phoenix is contorted and committed, the opening act is a perfect set-up, the rest is a tragic case of wasting an opportunity. If Joker was a drama that didn't need to tie in specific references to established characters, and it actually had a political ideology, maybe it would be noteworthy. Instead it's a lot of nothing. It may be a very interesting nothing, but that doesn't stop it being empty.

Joker is a politically confused film. It almost has something to say about class warfare but backs off whenever it can. It is neither woke nor conservative. An actually brave and edgy film would have made the failures of the liberal capitalist system be crucial to the development of the Joker. Instead Joker shrivels up and gives us a bunch of bullshit about child abuse and an unfulfilled romance. Somehow Joker wants us to sympathise with a impoverished man who is wronged by society whilst also presenting legitimate class revolution as villainous. There is something deeply incongruous about that. I guess arguing the system alone is a reason to be angry doesn't match with what Hollywood would allow.

So much of Joker is let down by its association with DC. Bringing in the Wayne family assigns the film nominal heroes and villains. Whilst the film pretends there's nuance on both sides, it plays ultimately as making Thomas Wayne a tragic victim. Batman is fascist, a concept already explored in The Dark Knight. We don't need a Joker film to come along, toy with that idea incoherently, and then reject it to celebrate the Waynes as victims of an evil class uprising. A ballsier and more politically damning film would be one where Batman is the villain, not one where Joker is the hero.

Joker has things to commend. It's a sympathetic take on mental illness, which is something worth noting. It is also undeniably a well orchestrated piece of filmmaking, however much it steals from Scorsese. It has bad aspects though. The reveal about one character is decently done, then ruined by a patronising montage that treats us as idiots. Joker is not a film for intelligent audiences, as it has to hold your hand through all its complications. Lines have to be overly explicit, to what I found to be a literally laughable degree. Nothing about Joker is that smart or coherent, it just has a façade of being a serious and meaningful work. It basically does what last year's Suspiria did for horror films, except now for superhero films. It pretends to be smarter than most while simultaneously riffing on better directors and insultingly ignoring the plethora of low-brow material that actually has more to say.

Joker has a promising start. Then it tanks hard. So much is superficially great and so little holds up substantially. It turns out that the writer-director of The Hangover Part II was unable to deliver the scathing piece of social commentary that Joker desperately should have been. People keep on dismissing Joker as a failed Taxi Driver or King of Comedy. Here's my more special take. If I want to watch a nihilistic piece on a society in free-fall and the futile yet violent revolution bound to ensue, I'll stick with Werckmeister Harmonies. At least then I'll experience the pain of existence without the insufferable refusal to truly say anything, which is the real crime of Joker.

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