The People’s Joker: The hero we need.

It is always so nice to descend on the Prince Charles Cinema and realise you’re surrounded by passionate people. I feel that venues like the PCC are some of the only places left in the modern world where people aren’t pretending to be too cool, or nonchalant - it’s a venue that inspires passion.

You could feel the passion in the room last night, as the downstairs cinema filled with audience members for one of the  UK screenings of ‘The People’s Joker’ — people were open to giving the film a chance, hopeful for what it might inspire within them, ready to have their brain chemistry changed. There’s something infectious and sticky about energy like that. To everyone in that room, thanks for bringing that unfettered positive energy — it was like a heat pack for my sprained heart.

It is with this energy that we took dose of what can only be described as the most ambitious, and successful, cinematic event of the last decade.

‘The People’s Joker’ already knows why you’re here. or, rather, it signalled very well in it’s marketing efforts who would be here.

At the very least, you’re a fan of DC Comics, coming to see what all the fuss is about. In this sense, you were rewarded with a barrage of Easter eggs, references, deconstructions and new takes on the material — enough to fill 5 seasons of a podcast if you so choose.

Or, maybe, you heard it was a Trans coming-of-age story, in which case you were rewarded with a display of honesty, rawness and vulnerability rarely attempted in our hyper-irony pilled world. The sincerity cut the acerbic tone quite brilliantly, and left a very good taste in the mouth.

Maybe, like me, you’re an insufferable film aficionado, and you were there because of the buzz it got at TIFF in 2023 because Warner Bros are boner killers, and you love ambulance chasing, especially when the controversy surrounds something that sounds so ambitious on paper. In which case — jackpot. You got the movie you were dreaming of.

As loyal readers know, my biggest compliment for a film, other than decorating the time well, which is a high compliment indeed, is that the ineffable creative spirit of the room is put into overdrive by it. That, by the time the credits stop rolling, the audience have been stirred to sit at the desk, or the easel, or the Final Cut Pro, or the Final Draft, or the notebook, and finish something.

It is hard, when a film is this large in scope, for it not to inspire you — but the nitrous element, I think, was that it was so fucking successful, so focused, in bringing all of these elements together. People were laughing, HARD, I cried like twice, and there was even some random weirdo guys who scared the shit out of me trying to come into the room and shout ‘IT’S NOT FUNNY’, as if a guy in a black puffer jacket that looks like every other guy would know comedy if it bit him in the ass. I consider that a marker of the film’s quality, even if I did fear for my life for a second there.

No Spoilers, let it hit you like a cushioned truck, you’re welcome.