Joaquin Phoenix puts on a hap­py face in the Jok­er trailer

Like Ham­let or Oedi­pus, the role of the Jok­er has grown into a prov­ing ground for great actors. Such esteemed thes­pi­ans as Jared Leto and Cesar Romero have delved into the dark psy­chol­o­gy of the clown who fights Bat­man to tap into their most extreme selves, push­ing their abil­i­ties to the lim­it in intense scenes like this one.

A fear­less per­former well-versed in the fringes of human behav­ior, of course Joaquin Phoenix couldn’t resist the chal­lenge to sum­mit this act­ing Mat­ter­horn. The new­ly released trail­er for the villain’s solo ori­gin film, sim­ply titled Jok­er, offers a taste of his her­culean efforts.

Phoenix begins the film as Arthur Fleck, mild-man­nered stand-up and fail­ure in life. He’s got no pro­fes­sion­al prospects, no women in his life apart from the moth­er he must per­son­al­ly bathe, no pos­si­bil­i­ties – until he dis­cov­ers the sneak trap­door of madness.

Direc­tor Todd Phillips has cit­ed such Mar­tin Scors­ese clas­sics as Taxi Dri­ver and The King of Com­e­dy as inspi­ra­tions for his for­ay into the super­hero genre, and aside from the pres­ence of Robert De Niro him­self, this film appears to be the account of one man ground down by soci­ety. Like Travis Bick­le before him, Arthur Fleck must even­tu­al­ly snap.

The trail­er goes light on the action, call­ing into ques­tion just how much ass-whup­ping will be fea­tured in the film. Though the trailer’s voice-over nar­ra­tion states that Fleck became the Jok­er when he start­ed think­ing of his life as a sick com­e­dy, Phillips has described the film as a ​“tragedy”.

The oth­er play­ers of this tragi­com­e­dy include Zazie Beetz (mak­ing the jump from the Mar­vel house, after appear­ing in last year’s Dead­pool 2), her Atlanta co-star Bri­an Tyree Hen­ry, and as a pair of Gotham beat cops, char­ac­ter actors Shea Whigh­am and Bill Camp.

Phoenix pro­vides a more rec­og­niz­ably human take on the Jok­er than we’ve seen in the past, in no small part due to the fact that the film joins him pre-makeover. But beyond that, even when he’s got the face­paint on, Phoenix can emote a wound­ed, snarling vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty like few oth­ers. There’s a direct line to be traced from Fred­die Quell to Arthur Fleck.

Jok­er comes to the­aters in the UK and US on 4 October.

**Update: 28/08/2019** Warn­er Bros have now released a ​“final” Jok­er trail­er, with plen­ty wacky Joaquin japes. Take look below…