Again They Went to the Seventh Floor and Down the Hall to the Same Room

The following contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for Joker. If yous oasis't seen the motion-picture show yet, you really don't want to read on. Check out our spoiler-free review, go see the moving picture, and then come back, considering you're going to have questions.

Afterwards a surprising build up, even for a comic book movie, the highly anticipated Joker is finally here. The movie has begun public screenings and that means the offset audiences are finally seeing the end of the picture, and the debates near what nosotros just saw are commencement. So what exactly did we all only run across during the course of the DC flick and its catastrophe?

Calling Joker's ending ambiguous is putting information technology mildly. There are a lot of questions worth asking nearly the events that we run across in the flick. Let's dive into what happens, and the variety of theories explaining what it could all mean.

What Happens At The Finish Of Joker?

The snowball that is the ending begins to option up speed when Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck gets a phone phone call from the Murray Franklin Show, the late dark This night Show-style talk show hosted past Robert De Niro's character. He'southward Arthur's idol, so even though Franklin had used video of Arthur'southward lack of comedic skill as a punchline on the show, he agrees to become on.

We picket Arthur rehearsing his appearance on the show. The homo certainly has a plan. That program, based on what we run across, is that Arthur expects to blow his brains out on national tv set. He'due south going to go out in a blaze of glory, seemingly so that his decease will have more impact on the earth than his life has to this point.

Arthur arrives at the television studio for his appearance, in full clown confront paint, where he's asked to be introduced equally Joker. In the dressing room, the thought that Arthur will kill himself is teased once once more.

However, afterwards Arthur is introduced on the show, and the moment he had been planning for comes, he ends upward choosing non to go through with it. Instead, he confesses on alive TV to the murders he had committed before in the film, condemns the city and its people for the mode information technology treats its less fortunate. When he finally does pull his gun on the phase, rather than turning it on himself, he shoots Murray Franklin in the head, killing him instantly.

This, quite obviously, sends everything into a panic. The adjacent time nosotros run into Arthur, he'due south in the dorsum of a constabulary car, laughing in his own unique way. The protests by people in Joker masks, protests that had already been going on, only grow in strength. While Arthur had previously claimed at that place was nothing political in his clown look, he now embraces the chaos that he seemingly has, yet inadvertently, brought well-nigh.

The movie could have ended here, simply instead, the law car transporting Arthur is broadsided by an ambulance. People wearing Joker masks become out of the ambulance and extricate Arthur from the back of the police car, laying him on the hood in a reverential way.

Nosotros and so cutting to a Gotham Metropolis movie theatre, showing a double feature, which includes a Zorro motion-picture show, which is a nice nod to Batman comic fans. Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne are exiting the theater. Considering of the unrest on the street, the iii retreat down an alley, and another bystander in a Joker mask sees them. He recognizes Thomas Wayne, and shoots both Thomas and his wife for existence the rich people the protest is calling out. It's the classic Batman origin sequence, complete with a shower of pearls from Martha's necklace falling to the ground.

Cutting back to Arthur, he regains consciousness and stands atop the police car. The assembled rioters are auspicious him on and Arthur accepts their accolades. In a concluding moment that seemingly completes his transformation, Arthur uses blood from his own mouth every bit extra face paint to requite himself a larger, darker, "smile."

Nosotros cutting to black and the sound of Arthur laughing, but our story isn't quite over yet. We next run across Arthur, in handcuffs and dressed all in white, in an all-white room. He is clearly in some sort of hospital. At that place'due south a doctor or therapist in the room with him. She asks what he thinks is then funny. He says she wouldn't get the joke.

Finally, we see Arthur shuffling down a pristine white hallway, but with each step Arthur leaves red footprints on the floor behind him. In the film'southward closing moments we come across Arthur running back and forth while the staff of the hospital give chase.

A Literal Estimation Of Joker

The simplest way to explain Joker is, of grade, a straightforward reading of everything that we've seen. There are some problems with doing that, but we'll get at that place. In this reading, Arthur'south killing of three Wall Street bankers begins a grass roots movement against the wealthy in Gotham Urban center, which is happening in the background while Arthur goes about trying to live his own life.

His video that shows him bombing at a one-act club goes viral, or what passes for it in this undated but conspicuously pre-internet age. Information technology'due south sort of a vaguely tardily-70s/early-80s based on the technology. This results in an appearance on a popular television show, where he kills the host, making him a leader in a motion to tear down the wealthy and privileged, which also inadvertently volition create Batman, who will, nosotros assume, ascent up to fight him.

In this version of the ending, Arthur is manifestly re-captured off-screen after "becoming Joker" and has been institutionalized. Notwithstanding, he's clearly however dangerous, as the blood that we come across on Arthur'due south shoes could very well be that of the therapist he had just been speaking with.

This all works as far as it goes, merely there's a problem.

Joker'south Unreliable Narrator

The problem with reading Joker in a straightforward fashion is Joker himself. Arthur Chip has already proven himself, long earlier the end of the movie, to be an unreliable narrator.

There are two aspects that draw usa to this conclusion in the movie. Commencement, early on in the movie, we see Arthur envision himself as a part of the Murray Franklin idiot box audience, where his idol Murray singles out Arthur for attention, giving him the admiration, and potentially the male parent effigy, that Arthur so conspicuously wants.

This sequence is all in Arthur's caput and that's made clear, but at the same fourth dimension, the sequence itself isn't filmed in any mode to make information technology obvious that it'south a fantasy. The scene as we see it looks to be as real every bit anything else we come across in the movie.

Later, we see Arthur brainstorm a relationship with a neighbor named Sophie, played by Zazie Beetz, She watches his performance at the comedy lodge and she sits with him at his mother's bedside afterwards she has a stroke. The human relationship struck me as odd as information technology was happening, and it turns out the reason for that is that it wasn't real.

Near the cease of the moving-picture show, Arthur lets himself into Sophie's apartment and when she discovers him there, it's clear the 2 have no existing relationship. She recognizes him as her neighbour, only that'south all, and she'due south terrified of him. The sequences with her and Arthur together are replayed for the audience to make it clear that Arthur was always alone in those moments. As such, since we at present know things that presented every bit "existent" in the film were non, we tin't really trust anything that we meet throughout the film.

With this knowledge, the final sequence of Arthur in the hospital takes on a very different tone. Has everything prior to the cutting to blackness and seeing Arthur in the hospital been part of Arthur'due south "joke?" Has the unabridged movie been in his head? We don't see a similar cut to black in any other sequence of the motion picture. There's a clear depiction between everything that came earlier and this last sequence.

What'southward more, there'southward a reference early in the movie when Arthur is speaking with a social worker about how he has been previously institutionalized. When this is brought up, nosotros're given a brief look at Arthur banging his caput against a door where he's being held for observation. His clothing in that moment, and the room in general, look very similar to the way he'due south seen at the end of the movie. Is information technology possible he never actually left?

Lingering Joker Questions

Neither of these interpretations are entirely clear cut and both leave some questions worth because.

If we believe that everything we see here happened just as we see it, it leaves a pretty big question mark as to how Arthur Fleck ended upward institutionalized. How he did he go from existence rescued past literal Joker henchman to existence in handcuffs in a hospital? Clearly, these people surrounding him on the street are willing to go to some extreme lengths to keep Joker out of jail, and leaving out how this happened is a pretty big, and obviously intentional, omission.

Across that, fifty-fifty a literal interpretation of the events of Joker has to take into account that parts of it aren't real, and so one time we accept that'southward truthful, nosotros have to be open to the thought that there might still exist other aspects of the pic that are in Arthur's head that nosotros aren't specifically told about. Fifty-fifty if nosotros believe that, by and large, the story is the truth, it's non the whole truth.

If everything we see in the story of Joker is actually all in Arthur Scrap'southward mind, information technology doesn't explicate the things that happen inside Arthur Flack's mind within the story itself. If all of information technology is a fantasy, then his human relationship with Zazie Beets' character is a fantasy within the fantasy. Both the relationship, and the revelation that in that location was no relationship, both take place within Arthur'southward head. That's more than a fiddling convoluted.

If the story is all a mental fiction, so Arthur created the ambiguity of his own parentage. Kickoff it looks like Arthur might be an illegitimate member of the Wayne family. Then, we're told that Arthur was adopted and his female parent had mental bug of her own. Finally, we see a picture of Arthur'south mom as a young woman, with a annotation on the back by Thomas Wayne, hinting that maybe the relationship was existent after all. Is all this evidence that we're within the heed of a troubled man, or bear witness that we're non?

A 3rd Choice?

Mayhap the real respond lies somewhere in between. The fact is that neither of these options is mutually exclusive. Perhaps the movie we just witnessed has all taken place within Arthur Bit'south mind, but it'south more than memory than fantasy. The events could have all happened, but we're seeing them through the lens of a troubled man, and thus we're not seeing things exactly how they happened.

Arthur could be remembering the events that have taken place, but irresolute the parts that he doesn't like. Hell, we've all thought dorsum on events in our lives and considered how they could take gone differently, how they could have gone improve. Maybe that's what nosotros're seeing here. This is Arthur Fleck's story equally he wishes it had happened.

Of course, if this is what happened, we'll never know the truth. Most of the movie we've seen could be the existent story, just any small parts of it could be Arthur imagination. It's impossible to know which is which.

And so What Really Happened?

There are answers to these questions, but they're certainly non definitive answers. In the terminate, it seems clear that the point of Joker's ending is that information technology not be clear cut, so that fans tin can debate the topic.

So, let's practice that. What do you recall? Did the events of Joker as nosotros see them really happen or was everything in Arthur'south head? Was it some combination of the two, or is at that place another angle nosotros're non because hither? Let us know what you think in the poll below.

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Source: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2481483/joker-ending-explained-what-really-happened

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