Fall festival season already has moviegoers a little short of breath.
In the mountains of Telluride, it’sthe altitude; across the Atlantic in Venice, blameJoker.
As to howJoker(out Oct. 4) made audiences feel?
That’s a far murkier picture.
The relatively few antagonistic portrayals that win over Academy voters court admiration and horror over empathy and familiarity.
Think Daniel Day-Lewis inThere Will Be Blood.
Forest Whitaker inThe Last King of Scotland.
And sure, Ledger inThe Dark Knight, too.
But Phoenix’s Joker occupies a more discomfiting space.
Consensus indicates, though, that at the film’s center isAdam Sandler’s best performance ever.
But still: This is a long time coming, more than 15 years afterPunch Drunk Love.
Sandler’s case is filled with contradictions.
outweigh their resistance to the Safdies' brand of manic arthouse filmmaking?
Just how far can Sandler ride the comeback narrative when he’s playing someone so contemptible?
But out of the Venice-Telluride haze, two acclaimed portrayals of terrible men remain the dominant story.
This is the way it’s always been the inevitable gravitating toward the biggest, ugliest transformations.
At least in this game of campaigning and prognosticating, we get some kind of vote.
