Stunning

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2020)

This is an extraordinary performance by Joaquin Phoenix. It easily could win the best actor or picture Academy Award. It is an emotionally fixating film but a very tragic commentary on mental illness and our society's culpability in it. There is commentary on the social anarchy all around us and our lack of empathy and caring toward those who need it the most. It reminded me of Trump and his ugly minions, cutting off food to children, cutting benefits that help people, rolling back pollution regulations which will hurt millions and putting innocent brown children in cages. The First Lady donned a jacket when she visited the children in captivity that said: I Really Don't Care Do You? That said it all about Trump.
This film is extraordinary and Phoenix's acting as the Joker is extraordinary. It would make for a great treatise on cultural responsibility for those who are mentally ill and society's lack of caring or empathy toward those who need it the most. The violence comes back on those who are the most inured to suffering. Do they deserve it? Perhaps they do. Then there is the joker's makeup and mask he wears, the Turrets like symptom of his breaking out into incessant high pitched laughter that people find him simply weird. Some in the city don some joker's masks in a kind of empathy but it's a picture of anarchy as well since chaos reigns in the streets of Gotham. The film surrounds comedy but there is nothing comedic in the Joker's world. Robert De Niro is in it playing a kind of Johnny Carson late night comedian as a profound example of one who takes the money and runs headlong into the Joker's wrath. If you like a film of depth and the recognition of the darkness of the human condition then you will love this. I cannot stop thinking about it. It is brilliant but perhaps not for everyone. Is there violence? -- yes, Mary Poppins it's not!