"Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,Bird fly high by the light of the moon, Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman."

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2019)

"You don't listen, do you? You just ask the same questions every week. "How's you job?" "Are you having any negative thoughts?" All I have are negative thoughts."-Arthur Fleck.
Along with Doctor Sleep (fingers crossed its good!) Joker has been my most anticipated film of the year,which I planned to see in IMAX on the opening day. Since the movie came out, all my plans annoyingly went haywire, first in finding it not on at IMAX due to Disney block-booking the screen for Ad Astra, then getting the flu,and breaking a tooth, causing it to have to be removed!
Being in town today after a meeting,I decided take the chance to push all that bad luck aside,by going to the local cinema to finally play the joker.
View on the film:
Going right back to the Punk spirit of his GG Allin documentary origins,co-writer/(with Scott Silver) director Todd Phillips & his regular cinematographer Lawrence Sher switch on Hildur Guðnadóttir's excellent grinding Industrial score, and dissect Fleck with a incredibly a raw atmosphere, opening Gotham to stunningly vast wide-angle shots taking in the mountains of trash and poverty-stricken crumbling buildings, which Fleck dies in,but Joker is born from.
Whilst clearly inspired by 70's US cinema,Phillips wisely avoids making this a mere tribute, by stripping the film from every layer of gloss CBM have been painted with over the last few years, to instead cast light at grime-covered murky colours, spread in stylishly restrained short zoom-ins and tracking shots bringing the viewer up close to the short, sharp, shots of abrasive violence.
Igniting a revolution from Thomas Wayne calling people "Clowns", the screenplay by Phillips and Silver takes a grounded approach to the actions of Fleck, who becomes a symbol as Joker, after getting chewed and spat out by society. Book-ending the film with Fleck speaking to a counsellor, the writers draw a excellent character study laced with bitter dialogue, driving the film not with action scenes, but Fleck being grind down of his humanity until the chaos of Joker is all that remains.
Joined by a great,on the edge Frances Conroy as his mum, a dreamy Zazie Beetz as neighbour Dumond, and a double bill of gruffness from Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne and Robert De Niro as Murray, Joaquin Phoenix gives a astonishing, expressive turn as the battered and beaten across every step of the downward spiral Joker.