The People’s Joker has been on my radar since its splashy premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2022, which made headlines when the film was served a cease-and-desist order from Warner Bros., which resulted in the cancellation of all future screenings. All anyone who was not at the premiere of the film really knew about it was that it was some sort of parody of Todd Phillip’s 2019 Joker from a trans perspective. After just under two years of legal dispute, The People’s Joker has finally been released. Kinda. It was shown at the IFC Center in New York City on April 5th of this year and has been touring arthouse cinemas across the country since, only showing in special “one day only” screenings. I suspect this was an agreement that the team behind the film made with Warner Bros to get a release at all.
After all this ruckus, what is The People’s Joker? It turns out that what started as a comical re-edit of Joker (2019) has morphed into a satire epic that uses the lens of the DC Universe to tell the story of its Writer/Director/Editor/Star Vera Drew and her struggles with gender identity, relationships, and the world of comedy, comparing herself to Harley Quinn, and later, the titular Joker. It is a punk-rock outburst filmed over three days in the offices of Tim and Eric and completed over two years with over 100 artists and animators willing it into existence through sheer will and passion. The film is dedicated to “Mom and Joel Schumacher,” which should give you a pretty good idea of the style the film is going for. Drew has said that watching Schumacher’s Batman Forever is what gave her the inkling that she might be a girl. She identified more with Nicole Kidman than Batman. And the garish, over-the-top, neon aesthetic of that film is juiced up to a degree that I frankly didn’t think was possible.
The look of the film is obnoxious, at times unintelligible, and consistently entertaining and enveloping. It’s harnessing the power of post-ironic adult swim programming and alternative comics of today, which makes sense as Drew has been a part of the editing crew on a slew of alternative comedy shows hosted by the likes of Eric Andre, Nathan Fielder, Tim and Eric, Tim Robinson, Sasha Baron Cohen, and Tim Heideker (who makes an appearance in the film), a career so impressive and exhaustive of the last decade of this particular strain of boundary-pushing comedy that she calls herself the “Transgender Forrest Gump of Alt-comedy Post Production.” In those types of shows the edit is essential, so to see an editor who is prolific in that genre make something from whole cloth is very exciting, and it really pays off. Each shot seems to be made of multiple shots or animated cells composited together over a green-screen base. It’s a jagged mixed-media collage that uses multiple styles of animation. Some of it looks great, some of it doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter. It is not that kind of movie. Its moonshine aesthetic is a huge part of its charm and allows the movie to pull off its story, which is its greatest accomplishment.
Going into the movie, I expected the strange visuals. What I did not predict was how emotionally raw and nuanced the film is. It has elements that are so autobiographical and hyper-specific that it occasionally feels like a documentary, with a kind of “one man show” style narration bringing you through the film in a very natural way, which helps a lot when the visuals are screaming at you. It goes through her relationship with her mother, who sends Vera (Drew’s character is named after herself to enforce that one-man-show feel) to Arkham Asylum to get a prescription of Smylex, a medicinal version of Arthur Fleck’s affliction in the Joker film, making one smile whenever you are sad or say, experiencing body dysmorphia. The relationship starts very one note and typical but evolves over the course of the movie to something more complex, which is the greatest narrative trick of the movie and one that is repeated with multiple characters, most prominent of which is Mr. J, a transmasc parody of Jared Leto’s infamous portrayal of the Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, who in this is a stand-in for an abusive relationship that Drew had in real life that helped her come into her own. This character is a triumph, portraying a kind of manipulative and toxic relationship with layers and tragedy. Mr. J is genuinely good for Vera when she meets him, and seeing the relationship begin to get more dangerous is very affecting and grounds the movie, even when a lot of the surrounding elements are pure Goofballs McGillicuddy.
But all that could be accomplished in a normal movie, with a pretty small budget. What is so impressive about the visuals of this movie is what they are able to achieve with so little. This film would have cost at least a hundred million dollars if it was made traditionally, but in a similar fashion to this year’s (also excellent) Hundreds of Beavers, they pull it off with wit, sweat, tears, creativity, and editing expertise. It is never going to convince you that it looks realistic, but it’s not trying to. It gives you the sketch of the scene in a way that doesn’t feel compromised and can give you the full scope of the film.
And it’s funny too. If you enjoy any of the shows that Drew has worked on in the past, you’re going to find a majority of the many, many jokes the film throws at you funny. Especially if you are knowledgeable of the comedy scene. The film takes the failed standup conceit of the 2019 Joker and morphs it to fit Drew’s real experiences. It takes shots at pretty much every comedy establishment, most prominently UCB Comedy and SNL. And it is scathing. A lot of deep seeded resentment for the field is on full display here. The amount of bridges burned in this movie is impressive and definitively punk rock. The pacing of the movie and its massive ideas will keep you engaged regardless, and it has a skill of conveying the emotion of any given scene even if you don’t get what it is referencing, be it comedy or a slew of obscure references to the source material of which is very important to Drew.
But you can’t rent this film. Even though it is one of the buzziest indies of the year, you can’t watch it in the traditional methods. The daring and blatant use of Warner Bros.’ IP has guaranteed that this film be an underground classic, which is a bummer in some ways, but exciting in another. This is the closest we’ll get in our modern age to a rare VHS tape that would get passed around and sought after. It’s easier to find than that (you can purchase the Blu-Ray on ThePeoplesJoker.com), but that feeling of community around a niche group of weirdos that this movie is made for with love and care is really refreshing and inspiring. It feels like it’s pushing boundaries of what micro-budget digital film can become, and I am so excited to see what Drew will do next and what digital filmmaking will evolve into.
And now, on July 24th, ThePeoplesJoker.com is hosting a one night only digital screening to cap off the theatrical distribution of the film, paired with a live wedding between Vera Drew and The Joker. It will likely be a normal event. You can buy your tickets online for $15 a pop, and I highly recommend that you do.
