Put on a happy face!

Rating: 10/10 (9 October 2019)

You won't actually be putting on a happy face while watching Joker, what you'll be doing instead is witness the greatest film of the year and the Oscar-worthy performance of Joaquin Phoenix. His performance is extraordinary, every single time you hear him laugh, you know something is wrong and you start to feel uncomfortable, add all that to his facial expressions and acting skills and you've got yourself a perfect performance that will be talked about for years to come. What this movie does to its viewers is fantastic, you're on the edge of your seat through all of its runtime which is about 2 hours. Joker is full of shocking scenes and so many surprises and it utilizes its R-rating very well. As we know this movie talks about mental illness and what it does to people and how it affects them specially when those people get abused or be made fun of, and Joker portrays this so perfectly that you even tend to sympathize with the main character, not that he is a good guy, he's not, he's the Joker after all, but by the way of how they portrayed this, you will be able to relate to this character and understand what he's going through so that by the time his story comes full circle and you see his character evolve to the clown prince of crime we all love to hate and hate to love, you'll be very satisfied and upset at the same time by how he becomes the Joker and it's all in a good way. Joker has quite the Easter eggs and references to other movies like the King of Comedy and Taxi Driver as the director Todd Phillips said that those two movies inspired him to do Joker, so you'll definitely feel some elements of those movies in here too. Talking about this movie without spoiling it is so difficult, but all i'll say is this: Joker is a drama masterpiece and it's not like any other comic book movie that's been made before, this is an original story that is based on the character "Joker" from DC comics but with a new and a deep origin story that is basically a character study that'll leave you wondering and thinking about how devastating it is by the time the credits start rolling.
Verdict: Joker is one of those movies that after viewing, you will need to sit down and try to take it all in because it dives deep into what mental illness is and how it can affect people and how society can be a part of that transformation.