Wait till you get a load of this…
After making its world premiere back in September 2022 in the Midnight Madness section at the Toronto International Film Festival, Vera Drew’s thrillingly irreverent trans comic book coming-of-age movie The People’s Joker finally gets a North American theatrical release from Altered Innocence beginning Friday, April 5th in New York. While many films might not be worth that long a wait—and fail to live up to such a sustained social media buzz driven by those who’ve already seen it, those who want to, and the filmmaker herself—rest assured, that is not the case here. Since seeing it for the first time over a year ago I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and I’m happy to report that I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Love that Joker.
With a sharp and peppy screenplay by Vera Drew and Bri LeRose, the film is structured as a first-person origin story of Joker (Vera Drew) who takes us back to growing up as Young Joker (Griffin Kramer) living in small-town Smallville, Kansas with her anxious mother (Lynn Downey), who sent her to the nefarious Dr. Crane (Christian Calloway) to undergo experimental treatment for being a “sad child”. The result was a permanent prescription for Smylex that instantly affixes a terrifyingly artificial grin on her face whenever she takes a puff on her inhaler.
Joker says she doesn’t recall when she first realized that she was trans, going on to rhetorically ponder directly to the viewer whether cis people remember the moment that they first realized they were cis. In any case, it’s no one’s business she affirms, describing her experience of a more gradual, “cracked mosaic of gender revelations”. With only sensationalized talkshow and crime series representations of trans folks available to her, when she starts to articulate her own transness to her mother, the woman immediately victimizes herself and shuts her child down.
The only light in Young Joker’s life is watching UCB Live on television, an SNL-like comedy sketch show beamed from Gotham City. With ambitions to be part of its cast, a young adult Joker leaves Smallville for Gotham, a place that her mother warns is filled with “nothing but biker freaks and cross-dressers”. On the first day of training to become a certified UCB “jokeman”—the only legal way to be a comedian in Gotham, with a low bar for entry—Joker befriends fellow stand-up trainee, the cold-flippered but warm-hearted Penguin (Nathan Faustyn). On stage in a “yes, and…” improv exercise led by her childhood comedy hero Ra’s Al Ghul (David Liebe Hart), Joker freezes up. Later, when she tries out some of her material on the Penguin over a fish supper, it is clear that her act needs some work, and that she will only be able to tell an authentic joke once she starts being true to herself. The film itself, on the other hand, is laugh-out-loud funny throughout.
Penguin and Joker quickly decide that the patriarchy of UCB—presided over by an animated, sometimes naked Lorne Michaels (voiced by Maria Bamford), with its Scientology-like levels of actualization and accompanying financial burdens—is not for them, and set up their own “anti-comedy” club in an abandoned Brooklyn amusement park. It is there where they soon build a chosen family of fellow comedy outsiders including Bane (Dan Curry), Catwoman (Daniella Baker), and Ivy (Ruin Carroll). Among them is stand-up comedy bad boy Mr. J (Kane Distler), a devastatingly handsome trans man whom Joker immediately falls so hard for that she thinks his terrible jokes are funny and ignores the glaring red flag that is the “Damaged” tattoo on his forehead.
Following their urinal meet-cute in the anti-comedy club restroom, a toxic, emotionally abusive relationship blossoms, but it is a complex one, and not without its tender and romantic moments. The two might be bad news for each other, but Mr. J is the first person to see Joker for who she truly is, which becomes apparent during an animated sex scene. Together, Mr.J and Joker are the flawed T4T movie couple we’ve been yearning for.
As Joker navigates her journey from “Jokeman to Harlequin”, as she puts it, in the language of the rigid binary structures of Gotham’s comedy world, where Jokemen are the funny ones and Harlequins are essentially their cheerleaders, she begins to define herself on her own terms as “Joker the Harlequin”. When she decides to get gender-affirming health care, it proves to be “inaccessible even in comic book movies”, leaving her no choice but to jump into a vat of hormones at a chemical plant.
Meanwhile, according to the news networks, Gotham is a chaotic, unruly hellscape, monitored by lethal Bat-drones (that come in rainbow colours for Pride month) and there is a constant noise of personalities like The Daily Planet’s Perry White (Tim Heidecker) filling the airwaves with conspiracy theory rantings about “the transsexual reptilian agenda”. Lex Luther is President (which after four years of 45 sadly doesn’t feel that far-fetched at all), with Batman vying to be his successor, a Batman who we view through Joker’s lens as a dangerous, self-serving billionaire, a “groomer”, taking advantage of a string of young Robins. A Batman who the Joker will inevitably, ultimately find herself pitted against.
I had been suffering from serious comic book movie fatigue, but The People’s Joker audaciously revitalizes the genre with its endlessly inventive approach, its fresh and distinctive queer voice, and striking visuals. In fact, this is the best comic movie I’ve seen in years. Drew takes familiar pop culture characters that have become ingrained in our collective psyches and boldly reinvents and remixes them, immersing us in her own unique universe, densely packed with hilarious dialogue and richly detailed, blink-and-you-miss-it moments. She proves herself to be a genius at world-building, and with her strong and captivatingly conversational authorial voice she ties the film’s stylistically and tonally eclectic elements together to form an outlandish, but coherent whole.
When it comes to the look, sometimes the special effects have an intentionally DIY and rudimentary vibe for comic purposes, like the depiction of Ivy, while other elements, especially the digitally created scene backgrounds, are more abstract, and achieve what millions of dollars worth of VFX rarely do, they draw us into the world of the film without calling attention to themselves; they engage and fire up the viewer’s imagination, and make us all the more invested in the characters and what’s happening to them. Rather than it being jarring when the visuals shift from animation to a mix of live action and CG VFX, it energizes and enriches the storytelling, adding layer upon layer. Drew’s editing is tight and pacy, but she also knows when to slow down and allow certain scenes room to breathe.
Cinematographer Nate Cornett’s frequent use of close-ups further draws us into the emotional lives of the characters, as do the committed acting performances that make us believe in the world of the movie. There’s a meta element to Drew’s Joker, a sense that she is using the comic book movie form to relay the essence of her own real-world story. Heightened at times and hugely entertaining, the performance also feels raw, personal, and honest. She balances vulnerability and strength, along with a wry wit in a way that’s utterly compelling. Lynn Downey delivers first-rate work too and somehow manages to find a sympathetic side to Joker’s uptight, ultra-concerned mother who initially can’t accept her child for who she is. The unexpected emotional heart of the film is Nathan Faustyn’s adorable Penguin, with the actor bringing such warmth, acceptance, and decent guy energy to the character that it is impossible not to fall for him. Another standout on the acting front is David Liebe Hart’s delightfully dry delivery as Ra’s Al Ghul, which put me in mind of Edith Massey at her finest.
The soundscape (by John Chamberlin, Shanna “Snake” Polley, Jake Robinson, and Stephen Harrod) is as detailed and effective as the visuals; and there’s a killer soundtrack with an atmospheric original score by Justin Krol, Quinn Scharber, Ember Knight, Danni Rowan, Elias, and the Error. When it comes to the songs, Mimi Zima’s aggressively propulsive and provocative “Back of the Truck” is definitely one of the highlights, along with a glorious, and rather touching 11 o’clock musical number by Joker herself. Please can we get a People’s Joker stage musical adaptation?
Superheroes, and their villains, have always appealed to LGBTQ+ folks, not just the spandex suits and inherent camp, but the way that the characters feel like outsiders who are misunderstood and othered by society, and the comic book movie world makes for a perfect framework for Drew’s narrative. As a queer kid who grew up on repeat viewings of Richard Donner’s Superman on VHS, my earliest awakenings of attraction and arousal were stirred by Christopher Reeve’s incarnation of the Man of Steel. I wanted him to hold me tight and treat me like Margot Kidder’s Lois, grasping my hand as we took flight. Here, we see Young Joker in the movie theatre with her mom, fantasizing about playing with the rubber nipples on mid-1990s Val Kilmer’s Bat-suit and being the Nicole Kidman (rendered in amusingly basic 2D CG animation) in the scenario. Drew dedicates her film both to her mom and Joel Schumacher, director of the much-derided camp classics Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. My own Bat-lust emerged as an 11-year-old, watching Tim Burton’s Batman as many times as I could at my local cinema, so the riffs on some of the dialogue and visual moments from that film in particular in this new queer context made my heart soar.
The People’s Joker succeeds on so many levels; as a compelling comic book movie that reinvigorates the genre; as a nuanced superhero/villain origin story; as a poignant and empowering trans coming-of-age tale; and as a biting, frequently hilarious satire of the comedy world, showboating politics, and modern life in general. There’s so much to take in, I can’t wait to watch it again.
Don’t just go see it – go, go, go, with a smile.
By James Kleinmann
The People’s Joker opens in New York on Friday, April 5th at IFC Center and in Los Angeles on Friday, April 12th at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre followed by a national rollout in the United States and Canada with select opening weekend Q&As. Complete theatrical listings can be found at alteredinnocence.net/thepeoplesjoker.
