One of the biggest questions left unanswered coming out of Joker was the fate of Zazie Beetz’s single mother Sophie and her child.
The last week see of the character, Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur had let himself into her apartment, with the audience releasing at that point that their relationship throughout the film had been nothing but a figment of Arthur’s imagination. Her fate is left ambiguous, as we then cut to a short of Arthur returning to his apartment, laughing maniacally.
Naturally, there’s been a lot of speculation over whether or not Arthur murdered Sophie, but the debate has now been put to rest courtesy of cinematographer Lawrence Sher.
“Todd Phillips makes it clear she wasn’t killed,” Sher tells Slash Film. “Arthur is killing people who’ve wronged him in a certain way, and Sophie never wronged him. In terms of what we did visually to play with the real and not real, there are callbacks and scenes that mirror each other. We leave hints using imagery or way we covered scenes similarly between scene. Outside of that, I like that people can have the conversation and come to their own conclusions.”
SEE ALSO: Jared Leto reportedly tried to block Joker movie from being made
This week has seen Joker continue its stellar box office run, the film surpassing Deadpool to become the highest grossing R-rated release of all time. Presumably that will translate to a sequel, although it remains to be seen whether Zazie Beetz’s Sophie has any future part to play in Arthur’s story.
Joker centres around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. The exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study but also a broader cautionary tale.
Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers), Robert De Niro (Goodfellas), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Bill Camp (Red Sparrow), Frances Conroy (American Horror Story), Brett Cullen (Narcos), Glenn Fleshler (Billions), Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful), Marc Maron (GLOW), Josh Pais (Motherless Brooklyn), Shea Whigham (Kong: Skull Island), Douglas Hodge (Robin Hood) and Dante Pereira-Olson (You Were Never Really Here).
