No joking Joaquin is Superb!

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2019)

My Review- Joker.
( No Spoilers from me don't let anyone tell you the climax) !
My rating 9/10 would have been 10 if it wasn't so dark and disturbing.
Well all the hype about Joaquin Phoenix performance as Joker and the 11 minute standing ovations at the Venice Film Festival are justified. I feel sorry for any actor in this year leading up to the Oscars 2020 as they have as much chance of an Oscar as our Prime Minister Scomo has of landing on Mars.
He is astonishing ! Not Scomo Joaquin.
I just hope it was all acting as Im sure it was Joaquin Phoenix has proved his acting prowess before in films like Walk the Line, Her and The Master and had been nominated for 3 acting Academy awards but never won I predict that will happen in 2020.
Our own great actor Heath Ledger was strongly rumoured after his premature death in 2008 to have been totally consumed disturbed and exhausted after being cast as The Joker In The Dark Knight and was awarded a posthumous Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor.
Up until this new version entirely devoted to the rise of The Joker character set of course in Gotham City when Bruce Wayne (Batman) is only a toddler Heath Ledger was the darkest portrayal ever but Joaquin is far more disturbing he looks wasted physically and mentally he off the Richter scale but his version is such an intelligent and sympathetic one that it gives an insight and understanding into mental illness and just what sends a man over the edge to insanity.
Director Todd Phillips and his crew of scenic designers and cinematographers and costume makers have created a dark and gloomy Gotham City where crime anarchy and where the poor disenfranchised and ignorant population are jealous and antagonistic to the middle classes and the lawmakers.
As a matter of fact for me just as an observation on today's real world problems Gotham and its inhabitants chillingly reminded me of the anarchy on the streets of Hong Kong even to the point of the masked demonstrators and the increasing violence coming from both the students and the Police.
Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin the top rating talk show host is also superb and we witness two great actors together in the interactions with Arthur Fleck (The Joker) and Murray Franklin who represents the populist media magnet chasing ratings and revenue.
Francis Conroy as Arthur's mother is also worthy of a best supporting actress nomination in what must have been a very different mother role to Ruth Fisher, Nate and David's gentle but complex mother in the top rating 2001-2005 series Six Feet Under.
This is as strange and haunting film , it's very confronting and disturbing I'll be honest and say I don't even know if I liked it but I enjoyed it cinematically and give it top marks for the artistry and creativity of the Production team and most of all for one of the finest portrayals of a character ever seen on film . Bravo Joaquin Phoenix.
Ps Stephen Sondheim's Send In The Clowns will never be the same . It's not about Clowns at all but hope Stephen Sondheim was paid a fortune.