Edgar Cochran ✝️’s review published on Letterboxd:
*Twitch Redeem by advokaiser.*
Todd recovers from a four-year-long hangover which was getting concerningly worse and accepts the bold task of taking a DC character that has been subject to numerous portrayals, from darkly comedic to anarchically sociopath, and construct a compelling, brutal psychological drama. We’ve come a long way since the horrifying story of the German Expressionist melodrama The Man Who Laughs (1928) made us reflect on the psychological impact of unfair tragedy, and we have evolved into an insightful, but not complete look at the Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA).
Filmmaking is competently ordinary, but the emotional rendition reaches cathartic levels. Social outcasts are difficult to represent on film, and when your macrocosm is a fictional comic-book city engulfed in crime and unusually strong and aberrant villains, how can one tackle a psychological character study from an angle that seems empathetic to the viewer? Mix The Bronx with Newark streets and play with the color grading accordingly depending on the situation at hand, play with high and low camera angles to depict both exaltation and urban oppression respectively, and be patient with Phoenix, who left the stage at many times with no explanation.
Phoenix casts his heart out; beyond the physical preparation, there are ominous underlying signals of menace that things will go awry. We all know what kind of person the character the protagonist will transform into; the responsibility relies, hence, on the road to perdition. Close-ups linger the necessary time to communicate a claustrophobia inside a fridge or the pressure of being observed by a non-caring therapist while having a prolonged episode of pathological laughter.
The approach to idealization and how it can be tangent to idolatry is the strongest idea of the film, along with how any individual always longs for love and acceptance. It’s an axiomatic human necessity. The story is not concerned with uppercutting “comedy” talk shows and how hosts and producers are more interested with profiting from the guest than the guest itself; give mass media resources to any person and many will follow, whether that’s the intent or not. Fanaticism is also always behind any person that exposes publicly, be it positive or toxic.
There is nothing else I can praise from a technical or writing standpoint; like Haneke’s piano teacher, this standup comedian has mom issues (for the billionth time, the father is absent from the family) but, unlike said piano teacher, it is about the hopeless search of a mentally unstable individual, like Travis Bickle, to find a place while controlling inner demons. And it is not only about finding a place, but about said place being made for us, a place that fills the eternal voids within us.
The approach to violence is visceral and unsettling, exactly as it should be, and every loss feels like a burden. For a time, you might go “hell yeah, he/she deserved it” and then you question the motives for rooting for an assassination. Does the end justify the means? We all know the bloody answer, but in practice, people apply that principle only when it is convenient for them.
73/100
