great character work

Rating: 8/10 (26 November 2019)

Gotham is in dire difficulties like New York City back in the 70's. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a mentally unstable clown. He laughs uncontrollably in stressful times. He gets beaten and robbed by a group of youths. He gets fired from his job. He lives with his unstable sick mom (Frances Conroy) who worked for Thomas Wayne and claims him to be her ex-lover and Arthur's biological father. When Arthur is attacked by three drunken suits in the subway, he shoots them dead. Thomas Wayne is outraged by the killing of these three well-educated pillars of society and announces his campaign for the mayor's office. Arthur has a relationship with his single-mom neighbor Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz) and admires talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro).
This is great character work from Joaquin Phoenix. He is one of the great actors working today. Director Todd Phillips is pounding his chest a lot and deserves some praise. I do have a couple of problems with his work. The smaller problem is the continuous shooting of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne with her pearls. That scene has been done so many times in the past three decades. It may be better to simply suggest it with a clown walking into the alley with a gun. Don't show the shooting. Just do the sound of the shot and leave. It's all been done before and Phillips should know this. The bigger issue is setting up this world. I think Phillips expected that the audience knows this world as a given. The streets have lots of garbage. There are news reports. Phillips fails to spell it out especially if income inequality is such a big theme in the movie. It needs a Wall Street protest or two. At least, there should be a protest in front of Wayne Tower. The first clown protest against Wayne seems to come out of nowhere. The hatred of the rich needs some background. Overall, this is a great new needed voice in the comic book superhero genre which presents ground to build a new franchise on.