“The People’s Joker” director Vera Drew also stars as a frustrated trans comedian who takes on an alter ego.
Altered Innocence
As much as I’ve admired many a modern-era superhero movie over the last two decades, some of the more middling efforts are plagued by a sense-dulling sameness, whether it’s yet another by-the-numbers-origin story or one more assemblage of a team to locate the Shiny Glowing Powerful Thingee that gives control of the universe to whoever can harness its power.
There is not a single frame in director, co-writer and star Vera Drew’s magnificently subversive, wildly inventive and pure punk parody “The People’s Joker” that falls into the aforementioned traps. When I say this is unlike any superhero movie you’ve ever seen, that’s not hyperbole; in fact, it’s closer to being an understatement. The Chicago-born Drew has created a unique, darkly funny and at times genuinely moving coming-of-age story, a Fractured Fairy Tale take on DC movies, that reimagines the Joker story arc in a manner so far-out it makes the upcoming jukebox musical “Joker: Folie â Duex” sound as tame and mainstream as a 1970s variety show.
(Sidebar: When Drew took “The People’s Joker” to the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, she received a letter of concern — but not a cease-and-desist — from Warner Bros. Discovery about the rights to certain DC characters. Long-story-let’s-get-back-to-the-review, the distributor Altered Innocence is now releasing the film in dozens of theaters nationwide.)
In what is undoubtedly the first film ever to be dedicated to “Mom and Joel Schumacher,” Drew draws on elements of her autobiographical story and uses a mélange of visual styles to satirize everything from various “Batman” films to the Joaquin Phoenix version of “Joker” to a number of comedy shows, including “Saturday Night Live.” Drew makes full use of her considerable charisma and onscreen presence as Vera, a trans woman from Smallville who moves to a bleak and dystopian version of Gotham City in the hopes of breaking into the world of stand-up comedy. (In flashback sequences, Griffin Kramer plays the young, pretransition Vera, with Lynn Downey as Vera’s mother, who loves her child but makes a lot of bad decisions. The deadname of the pretransition Vera is bleeped out.)
Turns out the Caped Crusader (Phil Braun) is a far-right fascist demagogue with some dark skeletons rattling around in the closet (what really WAS the deal with Batman and his young ward Robin, anyway?), while Gotham City’s sole comedy showcase operates under the oppressive and sexist UCB (United Clown Bureau), and good luck getting a gig on “UCB Live” if you’re not a man.
Plagued by an addiction to the ubiquitous anti-depressant known as Smylex and dealing with a traumatic childhood, Vera unites with fellow struggling comedian The Penguin (a very funny and likable Nathan Faustyn) to form an anti-comedy troupe filled with outcast DC villain characters, including the nonbinary Poison Ivy (Ruin Carroll) and the hilariously unfunny Riddler (Trevor Drinkwater). Vera eventually becomes Joker the Harlequin and embarks on a promising romance with the trans artist Jason “Mr. J” Todd (Kane Distler), who looks like the Jared Leto Joker from “Suicide Squad” and turns out to be something entirely different from what Vera/Joker the Harlequin expected and hoped for.
If it sounds like there’s a LOT going on here, well, that’s just the tip of the satiric spear, thanks in large part to the razor-sharp script from Drew and Bri LeRose. With dozens of artists contributing to the project, the film careens from live action to animation to some cool puppetry to computer-generated imagery to TV shows-within-the-movie, featuring colorful and sometimes fantastically garish production design and some truly creative makeup work.
“The People’s Joker” is filled with rapid-fire inside references and multilayered jokes, whether it’s a certain supporting player from the “Batman” universe in Cameo video, a Comic-Con bit, an alternate universe Lorne Michaels (Maria Bamford) or a Perry White (voiced by Tim Heidecker) who sounds an awful lot like conspiracy-theorist blowhard Alex Jones. It’s a dizzying and often dazzling all-you-can-consume menu, and while not every joke and visual gag hits the mark, the success percentage is impressive.
“The People’s Joker” pushes boundaries and questions the status quo, but it also works as a sincerely told origins story for Joker the Harlequin. This is the kind of movie where you really shouldn’t go on a bathroom break or a popcorn halfway through, because if you’re gone for five minutes and you come back and say to your movie-going companion, “What did I miss?” you’re putting too much of a burden on them to explain it all. Best for you to settle in, sit back and take in the beautiful and jagged chaos of it all.