“Does it help to have someone to talk to?”
The trailer for the long-awaited, fascinating and somewhat baffling Joker solo movie is finally here. And it is quite something.
We don’t get much in the way of plot, but we get plenty of atmosphere, violence and Joaquin Pheonix being deeply weird.
The origin movie for Batman’s greatest foe has deeply divided and confused fans since it was first announced. Set in the 1970s, it will reportedly not feature Batman at all.
Joaquin Pheonix takes the lead role, as a figure named ‘Arthur’. In the comics, the Joker has never officially been given a real name. He sometimes has been called Jack, and in the 1989 Batman movie he was ‘Jack Napier’, but nothing has ever stuck.
He has also never had a definitive origin. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke (a favourite of those who like to think Batman should be all grim and serious and that makes them clever) portrayed him as a failed stand-up comedian whose wife is electrocuted. But The Dark Knight played with the ambiguity of it.
Many fans have argued that the Joker’s lack of origin or backstory is what makes him so scary – and explaining it will only take away from the character’s power.
Joining Phoenix in the stacked cast are Robert De Niro as an as-yet-unnamed talk show host, Deadpool 2‘s Zazie Beetz as Arthur’s love interest, as well as GLOW‘s Marc Maron and Atlanta‘s Brian Tyree Henry.
Joker is in cinemas October 4th.
