Wonderful movie

Rating: 10/10 (20 October 2019)

Brilliant stuff. Phoenix deserves to walk to the Oscar, an absolutely masterful immersive performance, suffocating and honest. Leaves nothing in the back pocket, it's all hanging out there on screen. Perfectly paced throughout, loved the base filled score, never rushed, lingered when it needed to. Blasts into violence on occasion, but didn't feel like a violet movie, rather a study in frustration, disappointment and directionlessness. And at the heart, it's observation of 'mental illness' (should that be in quotes?), how people who are 'different' are shunned, isolated and I guess feared by much of the population who prefer not to have to deal with behaviour they don't understand. There is a back story, its disturbing, the behaviour has roots in the past. There are reasons to be sympathetic. But also to be wary of, because there is a madness there, just below the surface, with the potential to tip into the mainstream if the conditions are right. if a certain sequence of events open the door.
Just go an watch it.