Without equal villain of DC Comics, the Joker, has been delivered to display again and again. From Cesar Romero’s Nineteen Sixties camp prankster in Batman: The Film (1966), to Jack Nicholson’s villain-with-flare in Tim Burton’s iconic Batman (1989) and Heath Ledger’s splendidly textured psychotic prison in The Darkish Knight (2008).
Although he’s by no means the hero, the “crown prince of crime” normally dominates no matter movie he’s in.
Different variations of the nature had been much less neatly gained. Critics disliked Jared Leto’s soak up Suicide Squad (2016), calling the movie “shallow”, and lots of lovers loathed his gang-style tattoos and make-up.
Joaquin Phoenix’s downtrodden schizophrenic Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019) used to be to begin with championed via audiences and critics. However the movie felt disconnected from Joker’s historical past and extra like a critique of poverty and social isolation than a comic book e book film.
Phoenix’s reappearance in sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) used to be broadly panned, because of an incoherent plot and strange selection of the jukebox musical style.
That is the panorama that welcomes The Other people’s Joker, a parody movie with an LGBTQ+ twist. Written via Vera Drew and Bri LeRose, and directed via and starring Drew within the lead position, it has simply began a screening excursion of the United Kingdom.
In search of one thing excellent? Lower during the noise with a sparsely curated number of the newest releases, are living occasions and exhibitions, instantly in your inbox each fortnight, on Fridays. Enroll right here.
Set in another (unaffiliated and unofficial) DC universe, this semi-autobiographical darkish comedy explores Drew’s real-life gender transition, the usage of a fictional alter-ego, “Joker the Harlequin”. This persona is used as a metaphor for the difficulties of transgender formative years.
The movie is a re-imagining of Drew’s coming of age tale. She strikes to Gotham Town, looking to release a comedy act in a spot the place comedy has been outlawed. After a deficient audition, she comes to a decision to create “anti comedy”, supported via a slew of recognisable Batman villains such because the Riddler, Mr Freeze and Poison Ivy.
Change variations of well-known characters
Because the movie conjures provocative variations of acquainted characters – each equivalent and radically other to earlier incarnations noticed on display – The Other people’s Joker is definitely timed to compete with adjustments to the legit cinematic superhero universes made via Wonder and DC.
Those movie universes have leant into multiverse storytelling, with other variations of the similar characters (akin to Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland’s Spider-Males) leaving their respective universes to team-up or purpose havoc.
As such, it sort of feels apt that The Other people’s Joker name-checks a couple of variations of Batman characters, and contains them in the similar movie.
The trailer for The Other people’s Joker.
Drew’s persona is a mixture of each Harley Quinn and the Joker, whilst a former comic-book Robin, Jason Todd, turns into a Leto-style Joker. The movie makes use of this chance to satirise Leto’s characterisation together with the “damaged” brow tattoo that frustrated lovers.
Drew dances to a tune known as Celebration Lady, a not-so-subtle transforming of Celebration Guy via Prince, which soundtracked the coming of Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989). The movie additionally satirises Phoenix’s dance on a flight of steps in either one of his Joker films.
Reimagining continuity
The Other people’s Joker mines Batman comedian lore and gleefully stirs it up. Todd proclaims: “Before I was Jason Todd my name was Carrie Kelley” (a tender, feminine iteration of Robin who seemed in Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel The Darkish Knight Returns).
Previous hypothesis across the nature of Batman and Robin’s dating may be referenced when Todd notes that when he transitioned, Batman made a move at him.
Those name-checks and motifs are cleverly used and an ideal are compatible for his or her new context. Smylex (the Joker’s rictus grin causing poison) turns into a teenager drugs riffing on Ritalin, and metaphor for the repression of id. This paradoxically additionally leads Drew to find that she will be able to use Smylex-induced humour to deflect consideration from her secret id and transition.
A movie starring two other variations of the Joker has a stunning precedent. DC Comics has run a storyline since 2016 that prompt Batman had if truth be told arise in opposition to 3 other Jokers. All 3 then teamed up in a 2020 mini-series.
This is going hand in hand with Joker: Folie à Deux, and the Gotham TV collection which each recommend a brand new Joker will arrive when a prior one dies.
A clip from The Other people’s Joker.
The Other people’s Joker fits its anarchic content material with stylistic surrealism: blurred backgrounds, intensive use of inexperienced display, discount basement make-up, periodic slips into animation or motion figures, and CGI results to create the rictus grins. Those all give the movie a hallucinogenic really feel, culminating in an finishing the place Drew sails during the sky with fifth-dimensional imp Mister Mxyzptlk, floating between an unlimited selection of conceivable timelines.
With quite a lot of superhero franchises leaning into other media, continuities and multiverses, The Other people’s Joker follows within the custom of earlier re-imagingings of Batman.
As many authorized comedian e book movies are beginning to really feel like they’re retreading too acquainted flooring, expectantly the vital appreciation of this movie will level in opposition to stranger and extra distinctive comedian variations but to come back.
