Opening Image

Arthur Fleck tries his best to smile despite being depressed, while we hear multiple reports of crime in Gotham. He tries to fake a smile to mask his true emotions and who he really is.

Theme

We see Arthur performing on the street when a gang steals his sign and runs away, they lure him into an alley and beat him up for no reason at all. The theme of the film is Arthur’s struggle to survive in society while being constantly bullied and belittled.

Set Up

Arthur suffers from a condition that forces him to laugh involuntarily, especially when he’s uncomfortable, this works as a figurative act of his true self trying to crawl its way out every-time he’s distressed.

His counselor reads his journal in which he has stated that he hopes his death makes more sense to him than his life. This statement superimposes the theme as he’s tossed into a world that will never accept him for who he is and it makes him question his existence. He admits that he felt better when he was institutionalized along with all the other outcasts.

He relies on his medicines as a means for him to become a person that society will accept, but despite being on several medications, he can’t change the person he truly is. On this bus ride home, he again tries to make a kid laugh only for the boy’s mother to snap at him, forcing him back into his shell. Even after the woman learns of his condition, she offers him no sympathy.

Throughout the movie, we see Arthur wearily walking up a long staircase with a lot of effort, this is a metaphor of him trying to reach a level of acceptance in the world. His mother, Penny is obsessed with Thomas Wayne, her former employee and constantly writes to him, firmly believing that if he learns of their living condition he will help them. She’s always told Arthur that his purpose in life is to make people laugh which is why he constantly tries to do just that.

Meanwhile Arthur aspires to be like Franklin Murray, a talk show host who’s funny and charismatic, all of the things which Arthur could never be. He imagines what it would be like to meet him and thinks of himself as a son to Murray, proving just how lost he is in his own delusions.

Catalyst

After hearing of the attack in the alley, Arthur’s colleague Randall hands him a gun and then proceeds to make fun of a dwarf, Gary, for his condition. This makes everyone laugh and Arthur joins them as well, it shows that people will always laugh at the ones weaker and less fortunate than others.

Once Arthur leaves the room, he immediately stops laughing proving that he only did so to fit in with everyone else. Arthur’s boss blames him for running away with a signboard from when he was attacked in the beginning.

Debate

Despite being upset with the accusations, all Arthur can do is smile helplessly. Later he lets his anger out by kicking a garbage can aggressively.

Break into Two

Knowing full well that there’s nothing else he can do, he goes back to his routine and is once again seen wearily climbing the long staircase.

B Story

In the elevator Arthur meets Sophie, his neighbor who’s also exhausted with trying to survive in the city. She gestures, shooting herself with a gun and Arthur mimics this gesture as a sign that he likes her. The fact that a stranger willingly talked to him surprises Arthur.

Fun and Games

Arthur is always seen with a little bit of clown makeup on the sides of his face and neck even when he’s not working as a sign of his true self trying to make its way out.

He tells his mother about his goal of becoming a comedian but she tells him for that he would have to be funny, making it evident that no one understands his sense of humor. The next day he follows Sophie around and when she confronts him about it, she tells him that she finds him funny, the only person who does so. Arthur then invites her to his comedy act.

While performing at a children’s hospital, Arthur accidentally drops his gun, which results in him getting fired. Furthermore, Randall lies to his boss telling him that it was Arthur who approached him about the gun.

In the subway, Arthur sees three men harassing a woman and his nervous tic kicks in. This gets the attention of the men who then beat him up. In an act of self defense, he shoots two of them down and chases the other one before killing him. Horrified with what he’s done, he locks himself in a public bathroom only to realize that deep down he enjoyed it. Embracing the rush, he goes to Sophie’s apartment and hooks up with her.

Arthur starts becoming more and more confident as his dark side slowly takes over. When he leaves his workplace after gathering his things, he changes a sign saying “don’t forget to smile” to “don’t smile” proving that he doesn’t want to wear a false mask anymore.

Turns out the people Arthur killed were Wayne employees and most people think the killer was targeting the rich and ruling class of Gotham by killing them. When making a statement about the deaths, Thomas says that as mayor he plans to ensure that order has a more firm grip over the city. As Thomas is now the embodiment of order and Arthur is on his way to becoming the embodiment of chaos, they automatically become enemies.

When talking to his counselor, Arthur says that before the killing no one knew who he was which led him to question his own existence about after he’s had a taste of his dark side, everyone’s talking about him and he finally feels like somebody. He believes that he’ll only find his place in the world once he lets out his twisted and ugly self. Moreover, after the social service program shuts down leaving Arthur with no more medication, it just adds fuel to the fire.

On the night of the first act Arthur gets very uncomfortable and starts laughing uncontrollably but when he sees Sophie in the crowd, he’s able to go ahead. On his way out he sees a random person wearing a clown mask fashioned after the police sketch of him and he realizes that his influence is slowly spreading.

Midpoint

Arthur reads a letter addressed to Wayne and finds out that he’s actually his son. If this is true then it means Arthur’s suffering can finally end based on the promise Wayne made to the city, he’ll no longer struggle with the problems he’s been facing so far. He heads to Wayne manor and meets Bruce Wayne at the gate, he tries to make him laugh but Alfred, the butler doesn’t see it that way considering he’s a stranger. Being shunned by Alfred when trying to make someone laugh echoes the theme once again.

He tells Alfred that he’s Thomas’ son but Alfred tells him to leave saying his mother was sick. This angers Arthur and he begins to strangle Alfred through the gate (his first murders were in self-defense but this attempt at murder isn’t) however, at the last second he realizes what he’s doing and runs away. Meanwhile, Penny is admitted to the hospital and Arthur is questioned by two detectives about the subway killings.

The B story crosses over with the main plot when Penny consoles him at the hospital. Despite everything going wrong, he still has her.

Bad Guys Close In

Murray plays clips of Arthur’s act on his show and makes fun of him, leaving Arthur humiliated. In retaliation to Arthur seeking a normal life, he is reminded that the Joker protests are becoming more widespread, pushing him further to the dark side.

Arthur decides to join the protest outside a theater and is overwhelmed by the support. During the confusion, he manages to sneak inside and sees the rich laughing at a Charlie Chaplin movie, giving him hope that Thomas will accept him for who he is. However, Thomas tells him that Penny adopted him when she was working for Wayne, this crushes Arthur and he starts laughing. In a fit of rage, Thomas punches him and walks away.

All is Lost

Arthur is heartbroken and is seen tossing things out of his fridge only to lock himself inside it, with his insanity becoming more and more prominent. With Wayne’s rejection, he knows that he’ll never amount to anything.

Dark Night of the Soul

Arthur receives a call from Murray’s agent telling him that they want him on the show after the positive response his clips received, this could be a way for Arthur to turn things around.

He then decides to find out the truth for himself and heads to Arkham Asylum to get his mother’s file. When talking to the clerk, he confesses that the murders haven’t really bothered him like he thought they would, in fact they felt good.

After stealing the file, he finds out that he really was adopted and that he was abused repeatedly as a child. The more Arthur reads, the more he starts laughing uncontrollably.

Seeking compassion, he heads to Sophie’s apartment only to startle her with his presence. We learn that he’s been imagining all the times they spent together, he repeats the gesture of shooting himself in the head, hoping that she would do the same but it only terrifies her.

Break into Three

He leaves her apartment and starts laughing maniacally, there was nothing stopping him from going over the edge this time. He kills his mother in the hospital after telling her that his uncontrollable laughing was “the real me”. He used to think bad things happened to him because his life was a tragedy but now he realizes it was a comedy all along.

We learn that he plans to kill himself on television when he’s live on Murray’s show and then proceeds to put on his makeup, unleashing his true self.

Arthur is visited by Randall and Gary to console him regarding his mother’s condition, but Randall is actually there to ensure the gun doesn’t get sourced back to him, he again makes fun of Gary for being a dwarf and Arthur kills him. He lets Gary go because he knows what it’s like to get laughed at and because he was the only one who was ever nice to him.

Finale

Arthur steps out with his new look and is seen dancing down the same staircase he always struggled to climb, highlighting his descent into madness.

The two detectives chase him into the subway which is filled with Joker protesters. Arthur steals a mask off one of them which triggers a fight, proving that even among the clowns there’s no unity, only chaos. For the first time in his life, Arthur is with the majority and the detectives are the minority, after one of them accidentally shoots a protester, they get beaten up by the rest of them.

Before leaving the station, Arthur places the mask in the garbage symbolizing that he’s done masking his true face and at the studio, he requests to be called Joker. Murray asks him if it’s because of the protest and he replies that it isn’t, he doesn’t believe in whatever they’re protesting, he only believes in the chaos it generates.

The first time he was on the show, he was awkward and naive, now he’s confident and no longer intimidated. He pulls out his notebook and sees what he had written earlier about killing himself because his life made no sense but now with a new identity, he has a change of heart. When he kills Murray and gets arrested, it puts him on every news channel around, now the whole world sees him.

Closing Image

While being taken to prison Arthur relishes the riots around him, the car then gets attacked and he’s pulled out by the Joker protesters.

In the beginning, he tried his best to mask his emotions and fit in with everyone else but now he smiles effortlessly as he is where he belongs, being hailed as a hero in the midst of the disarray he created.

At the asylum, he laughs thinking about the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne by one of his supporters. His psychiatrist asks him what’s so funny and he just tells her she wouldn’t get it, no one ever did get his sense of humor.