FILM ROUND-UP

*Joker (15, 117 Mins) - ***
*Judy (12A, 118 Mins) - ****

Human self-destruction is chillingly documented in 'Joker' and 'Judy'.

Two of the finest performances you'll see all year battle it out for OSCAR attention in this week's double bill of 2019's most anticipated movies.

The first is Joaquin Phoenix who delivers a chameleon turn as Arthur Fleck in Director Todd Phillips's deeply disturbing, but also slightly silly origins story of Batman's No.1 nemesis 'Joker' (2019).

If its plot involving a shy, misunderstood outsider's gradual descent in psychosis and obsessive infatuation with a comic chat show host sounds familiar, its because we've seen it before in the school shooter-like psyche of Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver' (1976) and deranged fanboy antics of the aforementioned auteur's bizarre 'The King of Comedy' (1983) (Robert De Niro even makes a brilliant cameo as the Rupert Pupkin-esque comedian!).

Whenever any film dares evoke 'Taxi Driver's spirit, I instantly get worried. Not least because I don't want any work to dent the greatest film of the past 100 years, but also due to the disquieting nature of its themes. Even that film's most ardent admirer (myself!) would be a fool to claim its tale of a twisted loner's sick shot at fame is something any film-maker should be idolising.

This is precisely what 'Joker' aspires towards, however, and the spectre of Travis Bickle looms large over Phoenix's skin-crawling rendition. With only the infamous "you talkin' to me?" mirror monologue missing, the meticulous method actor embodies every milimetre of De Niro's  iconic, insomniac, porn-addicted creep of 70s cinema right down to the greasy black hair, crumpled army jacket and skeletal physique that makes Christian Bale's raw bones in 'The Machinist' (2004) look positively wholesome!

It's an emotionally draining portrait of a human being's self-destruction which will shiver you to the bone, but also leave tears streaming down your face as this sociopathic social outcast agonizingly splutters to control a neorological condition that causes him to laugh uncontrollably in innappropriate situations. Meanwhile Director Phillips's grotsville realisation of Gotham City drips with dreary pallets of beiges and browns that paint an "unclean" urban populous that does nothing, but entrap even the most "sane" soul; the score growling with deep basses and schizoid strings that evoke a sensation of being plunged deep into a pit of psychological horrors and being permanently lodged there.

Some reviews have reviled 'Joker' for being "toxic", "nasty" and "irresponsible". All adjectives that, for my money, encapsulate its bravura bravery for breaking the boundaries of acceptability in mainstream cinema. I would go as far as to call it subversive if it weren't for the comic-book cliches that clog the third act.

Ironically the film loses any sense of credibility as a "serious" motion picture the moment Phoenix's Arthur paints on that infamous clown make-up. While the late Heath Ledger's carnivalesque criminal from 'The Dark Knight' (2008) was rooted in realism, this cartoonish Joker - in supervillain mode - asks for massive leaps of faith from his audiences; dancing superflously to the  grinding guitars of Gary Glitter's 'Rock & Roll Part 2'.

Plot holes run amok around Arthur's homicidal acts leaving viewers wondering how such atrocities could go so undetected by authorities for so long. On top of this, our morally murky proto-antagonist's eventual anguished declaration of his murderous motivation feels far too-on the-nose for its own good.

Most of all, I couldn't shrug off a sense of silliness watching mobs clad in 'V for Vendetta'-style clown masks circle in pretentiously symbollic worship of our Joker while shredding Gotham to smoke and shrapnel. Can one man who - up until that point had spent the entirity of the film as a pathetic loser living on the fringes of society - inspire such a mass following without simply being left to rot on the sidewalks like any other sick whacko would be?

Still it will be a crime against "filmanity" if Phoenix doesn't walk away with the Best Actor prize. As it will too if Renee Zellwegar is robbed of Best Actress for her extraordinary inhabitation of the body of Judy Garland.

The theme of human self-destruction wrings raw in 'Judy' (2019) too which follows the familiar beats of a biopic centring around a faded musician/movie star dabbling with drink, drugs and domestic abuse.

Like 'Rocketman' (2019), though, this by-the-numbers approach is tapered with a welcome dose of fantastia through flashbacks of the aspiring young actress and singer scarcely swimming to stay afloat on the set of 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939). 

One risks  any respect as a potential film critic being snuffed over the rainbow by stating my dislike of 'Oz' which's unintentionally creepy special effects, cringey songs and nauseating production design have regularly had me burying my head in my hands!

The triumph therefore of Director Rupert Goold's film is its ability to appeal to an audience with little love for its beloved source material; blending fantasy and reality in the manner of the brilliant 'Saving Mr. Banks' (2013) by exposing the darkness behind a family-friendly musical.

In many ways, 'Judy's poisonous portrait of fame owes an unforeseen debt to Brady Corbet's peculiar 'Vox Lux' (2019) from earlier this year. Specifically in its suggestion that childhood trauma is the tipping point into the well-documented slippery slope towards the sex, drugs n' rock n' roll lifestyle associated with the entertainment industry.

​In an utterly Renee-centric movie, full praise must go to Darci Shaw who movingly gets to the tortured heart of the 14 year old Garland; heart-wrenchingly breathing life into a little girl who can barely swim sucked into the deep end of Hollywood vacuity with zero way back up to the surface. Despite the 30s setting, her chilling scenes with Weinstein-esque studio boss Louis B. Mayer (Richard Cordery) feel cruelly contemporary in relation to the horrific tales of sexual harassment that have spooled onto the spotlight since 2017.

Garland's traumatized "little girl" ego still seeps through Zellwegar's booming baritone, however, in a magnificently showy performance that offers audiences a tad more nuance than your standard, screamy "GIVE ME AN OSCAR" portrayal which this act will most certainly guarantee. The result is an winning mix of music and personal drama that absolutely plays to the widest possible crowd.