Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “The People’s Joker,” a scandalous IP-on-acid coming-out comic-book psychodrama, is a movie that has all the earmarks of an underground/ midnight/guerrilla-cinema sensation.
Vera Drew, who directed and co-wrote it, plays the title character, a mentally fractured aspiring stand-up comedian who bills herself as Joker the Harlequin.
She wears a green wig parted down the middle, white makeup with big jagged dark blotches around the eyes, a razory red lipstick grin, along with a purple jacket and fishnets that make her, in every way possible, a transgressive presence.
Onstage, when she puts an inhaler up to her mouth and draws in a breath of Smylex, the feel-happy drug prescribed to her as a child, she’ll let out a cackle of laughter so derisive it sounds like she’s going to fracture her own rib.
Read more on variety.com