78
Metascore
22 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88RogerEbert.comClint WorthingtonRogerEbert.comClint WorthingtonIt’s a film about outsiders, made by outsiders, that feels like outsider art, which is maybe the most exciting thing about it.
- 85SlashfilmBJ ColangeloSlashfilmBJ ColangeloVera Drew is both the unstoppable force and the immovable object, and we should all be so lucky to bear witness to her madness. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules, and The People's Joker refuses to follow any of them.
- 83IndieWireJude DryIndieWireJude DryComing out as a bold filmmaker with a fearless voice, prolific alt comedy editor Vera Drew’s mixed media dystopia is an experimental trans coming of age story wrapped in a scathing critique and confident rebuke of mainstream comedy. Fiercely original and deeply personal, it’s too damn good not to be seen.
- 83The Film StageAlistair RyderThe Film StageAlistair RyderThe freewheeling nature with which she veers between heightened, comic-adjacent antics and looser improv-stylings that are grounded exclusively within the audience’s frame of reference shouldn’t work, yet it’s the source of much of the film’s charm. Drew doesn’t aim to disguise the low-budget nature of the production, and rather than hope viewers suspend disbelief, she asks you to indulge in how she plays around with the genre’s artificiality.
- 83The A.V. ClubLeigh MonsonThe A.V. ClubLeigh MonsonOn one level, it directly lampoons the artificial mechanisms by which big-budget blockbusters tell their stories, yet it also provides an avenue for deeply personal storytelling within the framework of our shared cultural mythology.
- 80ColliderRoss BonaimeColliderRoss BonaimeThe People's Joker is a bold vision, a mixture of a coming-of-age story and parody, infused with a transition story that is emotionally powerful and absolutely necessary.
- 79Paste MagazineJacob OllerPaste MagazineJacob OllerIt’s a funky, janky, raw piece of autobiography, masquerading as the only thing the film industry makes anymore: A superhero movie. The riotous and weaponized result is everything the corporate use of the Joker isn’t, and everything it could be.
- 77PolygonKatie RifePolygonKatie RifeIn an age where corporate IP has become a de facto religion in global cinema culture, The People’s Joker is a blasphemous Molotov cocktail of a movie, with a unique and valuable point of view. And it’s hilarious, too.
- 75Slant MagazineSlant MagazineThroughout The People’s Joker, Drew lampoons comedy institutions as freely as she does superhero hegemony, in effect mounting an impassioned argument for the vitality of art made at the margins regardless of classification.
- It’s aggressively self-indulgent, cinematically topsy-turvy and exhausting. It’s also singular, daring and an uncompromising cannonball into the queer cinema pool.