There are obvious reasons why music like Guðnadóttir's Joker gains notoriety. It's oppressively simplistic and pervasive in the mix of the film, suggesting to some listeners that it has a "deeper" emotional connection with a character's psyche. In a primordial sense, that feeling might be true for the distraught, but it's also a cheap trick. For the same reason audiences can't identify and condemn the moral sickness of Joker as entertainment, the score is praised for ingenuity. And yet, it is guilty of the same glorification of stupidity and lack of subtlety. Granted, Guðnadóttir's film scores up to Joker were various shades of insufferable, her sense for droning only keeping her employed because of the aforementioned need for musical disillusionment in the industry at the moment. In that sense, ironically, Joker is actually a structural improvement for Guðnadóttir. You finally hear her devise and develop a theme and allow it minimally interesting development in orchestration over the course of the score. The work is monothematic and still experiences minimal variance in expression, however, the general tonality of the brooding atmosphere lulling you to a disturbed sleep if not for a handful of accelerated tempos and louder performances at times. The main theme is a series of two-note figures that is memorable in its execution but not its lyricism, the style of its performances remaining key to the score. Guðnadóttir simply agitates the theme at times when necessary for scenes in which the titular character incites riots and kills. In "Subway," "Escape From the Train," and, most notably, "Call Me Joker," the composer simply beefs up the depth of her sound design and orchestral backing for the cello, brass often tortured into sound effects duty. In fact, "Subway" uses the lovely malfunctioning equipment technique that makes you go to your window to determine if the awful industrial groaning and thumping noises are coming from obnoxious neighbors sawing wood. The theme only really shines in two cues, first in "Bathroom Dance," where the addition of choir and more complex harmonious chords produces better narrative sophistication, and in "Call Me Joker," when the sheer weight of an oversized brass section (minus trumpets, of course) finally and successfully cements the notion that violence is cool. In these final moments of the score, Guðnadóttir takes a page from Max Richter's more decisive music as she reaches catharsis.

The narrative flow of Guðnadóttir's music for Joker is minimally effective because of these handful of more verbose expressions of the main theme, but the score is no less inspiring or pleasant in its closing bars than it was at its opening. Don't be fooled by the partial orchestra and choir applied here; the presence of these supporting elements is the highlight of the score, but their application is extremely sparse. A cue like "Defeated Clown" is left to the cello theme and a simple minor-third alternation on timpani. By "Following Sophie," the composer resorts to chopping away on that minor-third note repeatedly. The sound design either groans pointlessly, as in "Hiding in the Fridge," or simply replaces the timpani as a rhythm-setter, as in "Meeting Bruce Wayne." There are several cues that serve absolutely no purpose other than to fill a void with noise, as in "Looking for Answers" and "Learning How to Act Normal." Few actual explosions of dissonance exist in the score, ironically, with infrequent synchronization points accentuated. Guðnadóttir really stumbles when trying expand the emotional range of the work, "Young Penny," failing to translate any sense of attempted empathy on higher strings for an important scene. Slightly more effective is the up-tempo strings of "Penny Taken to the Hospital." She succeeds better at addressing the sexual frustration of the "incel" movement in "Arthur Comes to Sophie," however, showing where this score's true heart lies. On the whole, it's easy to see why this music swept all the major awards for 2019 and captured audiences with its unshakably somber tone. How can you not notice how depressing this score can be, both in context and on album? Its bonehead simplicity is its strength in many ways, but that doesn't make it particularly effective music. Composers throughout history have addressed mental instability in remarkably creative and thought-provoking ways. That doesn't mean that Guðnadóttir should have used a waltz for the character, as Danny Elfman did, or the shrieking, rising pitch of an electric guitar, as Hans Zimmer did. But the path she took is the least accomplished, playing to tired expectations rather than bravely defining them. Much of this failure owes to the wretched film, of course, and Joker avoids the lowest rating at Filmtracks because it at least matches the galling and abusive attitude of the picture and is an improvement over Guðnadóttir's previous works. But this music underachieves on screen, relying on obviousness rather than ingenuity, and it makes for a truly awful listening experience on its short, mind-numbing album. The world is better than this.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download