Movies & TV / News
Todd Phillips Breaks Down the Ending of Joker (SPOILERS)
JOAQUIN PHOENIX as Arthur Fleck in Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and BRON Creative’s “JOKER,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise
WARNING: Spoilers ensue for the end of Joker.
The ending of Joker leaves some interpretation for the audience to do, and director Todd Phillips has provided a bit of insight to help. Phillips discussed the ending of the film during the featurette Joker: Vision & Fury (per ComicBook.com). The film ends with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in a mental institution, leaving the viewer to wonder whether anything in the film actually happened.
Speaking about the film, Phillips confirmed that Fleck is an unreliable narrator and is telling the story in retrospect through his perspective, saying, “There’s many ways to look at the movie. He might not be Joker. This is just a version of a Joker origin. It’s just the version this guy is telling in this room at a mental institution. I don’t know that he’s the most reliable narrator in the world, you know what I’m saying?”
While this information does give us some perspective, it obviously doesn’t mean that the events of the movie didn’t happen at all. Even if Arthur is delusional, much of how he sees the film could well be based on reality. On the other hand, he could just be suffering entirely from delusions and imagining his life through the lens of comic book elements.
Joker is now available on Digital HD and hits DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K on January 7th.
