A Diamond in the rough, beatiful, priceless but with some minor issues.

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2019)

DC movies pretty much loss me, their movies are a miss most times, incoherent mess with badly writed dialogue, character, set pieces, etc.
Considering that track record I didn't have hype for this movie, not even Joaquin Phoenix could me make watch this movie.
But then I saw it, felt uneasy the whole movie, I couldn't stand Arthur (that a good thing). The best way to describe it is like seing a house burn, you don't know if there is people inside, if they need help or you can do anything about it, then you choose to wait for someone else to do anything. I pretty much wanted to leave everytime he laughed, that is the kind of impact it produced on me.
---Acting---
Everyone was on point, especially Joaquin Phoenix, you could hear the pain everytime he uncontroably laugh, like some part of him is trying to stop it; his decend into madness was beatifully acted.
Most reviews like to compare Phoenix's portrayal to Ledger's but they miss an important part, they pretty much play different faces on the same coin, Joaquin plays the crazy, sociopath, disconnected from reality part and Ledger plays the anarquist part. But Joaquin brings something new to the table: mental ilness and trauma.
The rest of the cast shined in their own way, Robert de Niro is always a pleasure to witness in the silver screen, he is pretty much like wine, gets better with age; Zazie have proved herself as a great actress, I can't wait for a starring role for her.-
--Story and Pacing--
The movie took it's time to develope Arthur, and little by little adding new details of his childhood took me for a ride. He becomed more and more disconnected of reality just for reality hit him right in the face after knowing the truth about his mother.
After only 10 minutes you could see what kind of person Arthus is, a blue collar american with a mental ilness, tired of the rich sedating the problems of society with meaningless speeches. He tried his best, but sometimes your best isn't enough for society.-
Society alienated him, becoming a victim of beat downs without a reason, while he was trying to do his clown job.
For me the most impacful scene was watching him in the child's hospital trying to put a smile in the faces of sick kids, trying to make them happy in maybe their last days.
His life felt into pieces after getting fired, losing his only way to gain medication, to control his inner demons.-
--Issues--
There is two major issues: The hallucinations and the Waynes.
First the hallucinations: I could see a mile away the twist with Zazie, by the time it toke place we already knew that Arthur wasn't with both feet in reality, so the twist had less impact.
And the second issues is the ties to the over arching Batman lore, I felt that they forced the inclusion of the Waynes's murder at the end of the movie. It felt bit rushed and "we still need to create the batman somehow, also look a comic reference" moment.
Joker is a masterfully done movie, great dialogue, great acting and deserves every praise it gets. Is an amazing character study, comparable to another great comic book movies like Nolan's trilogy, Logan and some parts of Watchmen, and at the same time comparable to thrillers and dramas like Taxi Driver, Driver, Breaking Bad and many more of the same caliber.
In sumary forget that this movie is a DC movie and go watch it, you will enjoy it.-