An early draft of this review was originally published on November 14, 2024,
at Give Me Some Light on Substack, eight months before it appeared here.
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When it comes to Batman movies, I’m a very small minority: My favorite Caped Crusader films are The LEGO Batman Movie and Batman Returns.
But what about Joker movies? I think I finally have my answer. Sorry, DC Comics fans — you’re not likely to get a review of Joker: Folie à Deux from me anytime soon. The reviews from trusted friends have convinced me that I’m not likely to become one of its very few fans. I’m always open to surprises, and I’ll probably give it a look on a streaming service someday, but right now there are plenty of other movies I’m eager to see and likely to find rewarding.
And, as it seems like supervillains have succeeded in taking the U.S. Presidency, the House, and the Senate, I’m not excited about watching movies that appeal to supporters of racist and genocidal authoritarians.
The fact is that I rarely feel compelled to see superhero movies anymore. If you’ve been reading my film reviews for long, you know that I burned out on the genre about, oh, 20 years ago — even before anyone used the term “MCU” for Marvel movies. And I haven’t regained an appetite or appreciation for it since.
I’ve admired a few special exceptions: Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Into the Spider-Verse for example. But The People’s Joker introduces a spectacular exception to the list. It’s the most exciting variation on anything related to Marvel or DC that I’ve seen in ages.
The People’s Joker is a singularly creative engagement with the genre, taking the familiar DC Comics world of Gotham City as a versatile vocabulary for a merging of memoir and fantasy. It incorporates comic-book animation, live-action footage, and lots of low-budget special effects into a kaleidoscopic, hyperactive, relentlessly entertaining 92 minutes. And that’s more than enough time for actress Vera Drew to offer a testimony of what her experience as a transgender woman has been like, from the rejection of her parents to her struggles to gain traction as a stand-up comedian in New York (Gotham) City.
The film has stirred up a lot of controversy and conversation as it plays fast and loose with DC’s rigorously protected IP. But the buzz it has gained at film festivals has given it good momentum, and now it’s available as a streaming rental on Apple TV+ and Amazon. (If that’s not helpful to you, consider this: I checked out the DVD from my local Seattle library. Support your local libraries! Republicans may take them away from us soon.) I recommend The People’s Joker to anyone who has any enthusiasm for the world of Batman and The Joker, but I’d recommend it even more enthusiastically to anyone who hears a lot about transgender individuals but who rarely ever hears from them.
That many moviegoers are discovering it while the documentary Will and Harper is winning fans on Netflix suggests that we might be nearing a vital turning point in popular opinion on the subject — regardless of the fact that Traitor Trump’s MAGA minions have been spreading lies, hatred, and fear, to the greater endangerment of our transgender neighbors, neighbors I love and support. It’s hard to imagine an America in which that hatred does not still run hot, but I’m hopeful for better days.
I have been lucky enough to find meaningful friendships in my local LGBTQ community, and I am learning so much from people I once condemned out of ignorance and fear. You’ll find that a lot of professing Christians still do brand their LGBTQ neighbors as sub-human, marking them for abuse and contempt. I dare say that such cruelty exposes hypocrisy and betrays the very Gospel they claim to love. I can say that, because I was, not so long ago, just such a hypocrite. So many of the opinions I held even just ten years ago have changed, melting away in the revelatory light of actual relationships.
This is the kind of movie that might make a difference for people.
I grew up in a culture where “Sharing Your Personal Testimony” in an evening church service was exalted as the highest form of entertainment, guaranteed to earn the performers a tearful ovation, hugs, and assurance of having pleased the Lord. Once in a while, I would hear something startling and real. But it was, for the most part, such formulaic entertainment. (A lesson I’ve learned the hard way: If God is at work in your life, it’s not likely to manifest in a way that coheres into a crowd-pleasing paraphrase.)
- Color outside the familiar lines in your Personal Testimony, and you were dragged offstage by that cartoon hook.
- Say anything that made listeners uncomfortable, that wasn’t what they wanted to hear, that suggested their narrow definitions weren’t Absolutes, and you would suffer a low Audience Score.
- Suggest that coming to Jesus had done anything other than solve all your problems, wipe away all your tears, and make you permanently happy, and your story would fall under suspicion.
- And if you implicated anyone other than The People of the Unchurched World for your hardships, if you suggested that harm might come from inside the Community of the Redeemed, you were regarded as a threat, as someone being influenced by the Enemy.
I’m not suggesting that The People’s Joker is a movie about evangelicals. In fact, for a movie about an artist’s trans experience, it’s rare in its lack of attention to religion. (There are broad objections to far-right talk radio, but no explicit Christian-bashing. Surprising!)
So, why do I bring up Personal Testimony Night? Because this movie has all the un-subtlety of one of those testimonies. It’s a feverish and forceful narrative about someone waking up to a truth that illuminates the falseness of so much else, and about how her pursuit of the light is both a journey into liberation and a path into new kinds of abuse and suffering.
At the same time, this movie breaks all of those unspoken Testimony Night rules. Comedian and filmmaker Vera Drew doesn’t care who she offends here. She’s ready to implicate any and everyone — including herself — in the troubles she has endured.
The artist’s mantra of “Show don’t tell” doesn’t apply to all forms of creative expression — especially memoir. If you’re making art of your life story, some degree of telling is necessary. Drew’s testimony — a story of waking up, coming out as trans, and paying the price in all the predictable ways — tells and tells and tells. But it does so while also showing in all kinds of creative and challenging ways, making this the most relentlessly and ebulliently inventive work of hyper-pop pageantry since Everything Everywhere All at Once.
It also outshines many (if not most) of the Personal Testimonies I’ve ever heard by being fearlessly honest — making room for expressions of uncertainty, regret, and longing, and opting for a “To Be Continued” conclusion instead of feigning any resolution. That is to say, it feels truthfully human. It gives us a self-portrait of a person in a state of flux. We’re all in flux to varying degrees, of course — but few of us have the vocabulary to perceive that in ourselves, and even fewer have the courage to investigate it. The People’s Joker gives me a rare feeling that has something to do with gratitude and something to do with relief — because I know I’m being told the unapologetic, uninhibited, uncensored, and unvetted truth.
A movie like this could so easily seem full of itself, bitter, and vengeful. And this does, at times, give some of those vibes. But the ego and the anger feel earned. And there’s also so much joy in Drew’s unleashed creativity, in the way she’s giving herself permission to live beyond the constraints of other people’s expectations. Sure, she’s been taking names and now she’s ready to kick some ass. But there’s also a self-effacing spirit to the whole thing that makes this Joker seem like a hero-in-the-making, not a villain in a spiral.
If God is love (this I still believe), then I suspect God is pleased with this testimony.
I’ll admit, my attention started lagging for sheer exhaustion due to the movie’s relentlessness. Its 92 minutes feel closer to 120. (I felt the same way about Hundreds of Beavers.) And it is, at times, abrasive in a way that tests my patience (although that’s my problem, not Drew’s).
Nevertheless, I want to live in a world where movies as passionately personal, as relentlessly creative, as exhilarating in their “deal-with-it” truth-telling—movies like this one—aren’t such rare occasions. 2024 is a year I’ll remember as a time of promising and resourceful creativity at the movies, where many gifted filmmakers said “Let’s start from scratch and re-imagine what movies can be.” This is just the latest of several recent films that make our future at the movies seem promising again. And, better, it gives me hope that many of the most misunderstood, slandered, and persecuted people I know might begin to find more kindred spirits, more caring hearts, more gestures of love and support in this hateful, violent world.