What did Joker’s ending imply? We have a look at the very best theories

Note: comprises spoilers for Joker.

It appears to be like like Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips are laughing all the way in which to the financial institution as 2019’s Joker takes comedian ebook film followers underneath the large high for a dive contained in the psyche of Batman’s most well-known foe.

With Phoenix already tipped to be a attainable Oscar contender, Joker is being heralded as a legend inside its personal proper. The comedian ebook chiller closes with Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck stripped of his inexperienced hair and make-up, going through a grim future in what seems to be the infamous Arkham Asylum. There’s a bloody swansong that homages the character’s violent nature from the pages of DC as Fleck dances down a hospital hallway having seemingly slain his physician.

Despite Joker being billed as a standalone outing for Mr J, there are many tantalising theories concerning the last scene which have left followers laughing on the opposite facet of their faces. So, if everyone’s prepared to completely immerse themselves into the warped thoughts of Arthur Fleck, let’s take a look at what THAT Joker ending might actually imply…

1. It’s all in his head

Before the credit roll on Joker, audiences are requested to droop all perception that what they have been watching is definitely true. As the film heads into its last chapter, it turns into more and more clear that the Harlequin of Hate has been telling a number of porky pies.

One of the largest twists comes when it dawns that Arthur’s relationship with Zazie Beetz’s Sophie is little greater than his personal aspirations for love after a single assembly in an elevator. By the time Joker was apprehended by the cops and rescued by rioters – being hoisted into the air by his legion of adoring followers – issues had already strayed into the fanciful.

When it involves the ending, it is not onerous to think about an incarcerated Joker dwelling out his wildest fantasy of killing simply one other one who does not perceive him. The delusional Clown Prince of Crime then imagines himself breaking free from the confines of his incarceration and heading out into Gotham to change into town’s most harmful prison. However, is not that every one a bit of too handy?

Movies like Sucker Punch and Shutter Island (and, some argue, Taxi Driver) have performed with this concept to rob the lead character of their very own joyful ending in favour of one thing a bit of extra macabre.

Phillips has beforehand implied that Joker’s heroic standing among the many metropolis’s residents was all made up, whereas each the director and Warner Bros have mentioned Joker‘s ending was at all times imagined to be ambiguous. On a happier be aware (for some), does this additionally imply the dutiful doc lives to combat one other day?

2. It’s a flash-forward

While Fleck’s physician has a cheerful ending within the first choice, the second two sadly see her leaving Joker in a bodybag. Redditor wheresthetrigger1234 notes the ending’s change of tempo and aesthetic, musing that it is a leap into the way forward for a crime-riddled Gotham City.

Before Joker enacts his Arkham escape, he asks the physician if he can inform her a joke and rapidly modifications his thoughts. This can be spliced with pictures of a younger Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olson) standing over the our bodies of his mother and father within the notorious Crime Alley. Speaking to the LA Times, Phillips mused that possibly Fleck’s Joker is not the “final” Joker that an older Bruce/Batman faces off in opposition to. The flash-forward idea permits Phoenix to be the Batarang within the Caped Crusader’s facet. The ages could also be a bit of off, but when the X-Men motion pictures have taught Hollywood something, it is that nobody however the followers is actually holding observe of timelines.

Others be aware that Joker appears to have gained weight and grown stubble, whereas one fan claims there’s extra gray in Fleck’s hair in the course of the finale. The complete approach the scene is shot appears to have a special vibe to the remainder of the film, and there are many…