One of the best movies of the past few years

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2020)

Some of the "cinematic masterpiece!" raves and reviews may be overhyping it a bit, but "Joker" really is, in my opinion, one of the best movies made in recent years.
While I did enjoy the Batman movies of the late 80's and early 90's (and the Dark Knight), I'm really not much of a fan of modern superhero movies and tend to avoid them. The majority of them honestly just come off to me as a bunch of corporate, focus-grouped nonsense and copious amounts of CGI weaved together to appeal to the widest possible audience. When I heard "Joker" was less superhero and more reality based, I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm very glad I did.
In terms of "Batman" lore, the little that's involved in the storyline is both interesting and so basic that even non-fans will follow it. I think at this point it's common knowledge in American culture who Bruce Wayne is and the basics of his origin story.
Leaving aside the lore, as a stand alone story it's absolutely brilliant. It follows the path of a man already teetering on the edge as he slowly descends into complete madness. It doesn't just begin with an over the top, villainous caricature. This is just some guy, living with mental illness, in poverty with his mother.
There's some heavy social commentary (particularly about poverty and mental illness), but that too is done brilliantly, intelligently and effectively. It's not the superficial nonsense of spoon-feeding you buzzwords and talking points about whatever political trends are popular on social media this month. It's not the sacrificing of quality storytelling in favor of disingenuous virtue signaling and beating the viewer over the head with it to make sure it appeals to the lowest common denominator. It's just there. The writers effectively put it in the background throughout the entire movie, arguably getting some pretty strong messages across while barely even acknowledging it openly.
This isn't just a movie that makes you feel, it's one that makes you think. It doesn't treat morality as black or white and it doesn't lecture. Just as in life, there are no real purely "good" or "bad" people. Everyone is somewhere on the grey spectrum. It forces you to maybe not sympathize, but empathize with characters who are, let's just say extremely flawed. You may not agree with what they do, you may find it heinous, but you understand how and even why they got to that point.
There are a few areas of the plot that are left up to the interpretation of the viewer, but it's not done in a pretentious or obnoxious way that leaves you walking away unsatisfied. It's one of those movies that can leave you thinking about it and analyzing it for days after.
It's dark, it's gritty, it's often times uncomfortable. It's probably one of the few movies of the past few years that could realistically be classified as art.