Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have not just reimagined one of the most iconic villains in cinema history, but reimagined the comic book movie itself.

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2019)

"Joker" Review
(9.5/10)
I was close to giving this movie a ten out of ten, but then I thought to myself is it wrong for me to think that Joker is brilliant and unsettling all in one? Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have not just reimagined one of the most iconic villains in cinema history, but reimagined the comic book movie itself.
"I just don't want to feel so bad anymore," whispers Arthur, who's also on seven different types of medication and has been in the system for most of his life. A system that now has no resources or time for him. A desperate whisper that you know won't be heard by anyone. That simply signifies the beginning of both a descent and his path to becoming the Joker. This is ultimately what Joker is: an origin story. One that touches only ever so lightly on what has come before in the DC Universe. This could, particularly in the current climate, be viewed as a lament for outsiders and the ignored. That's too simple and Joker does anything but deliver you easy answers. It's a sad, chaotic, slow-burn study of someone who isn't visible; who doesn't even exist to the world around them. But your empathy, sympathy even, isn't guaranteed, and it begins to dissolve as Arthur somehow moves even further to the edges. This is, we mustn't forget, the story of how a villain was made.
As Arthur/Joker, Joaquin Phoenix is astonishing. Phillips has said he had a picture of the actor above his screen when writing the script and it's a belief that has paid off. Phoenix inhabits Arthur: having lost weight for the role, he looks thin, frail, hungry. Shadows carve out his exposed bones. His physicality is precise, the way he moves, shuffles, runs, sits, smokes, shrinks. His usual intensity is on full display and it's captivating, even overwhelming in moments. While this is Phoenix's film, Frances Conroy is quietly devastating as Arthur's mother Penny, and Zazie Beetz, as neighbour Sophie Dumond, while arguably underused, brings vital humanity to her scenes with Arthur. The most talked-about piece of casting was obviously Robert De Niro as late-night TV host Murray Franklin.
Mention must be made of Joker's cello score by Hildur Guðnadóttir: mournful, dark and fractured, and the cinematography by Lawrence Sher. In his hands, Gotham is alive as a flawed, brutal, broken-hearted character in its own right.
Joker isn't just an awesome comic book movie, it's an awesome movie, period. It offers no easy answers to the unsettling questions it raises about a cruel society in decline. Joaquin Phoenix's fully committed performance and Todd Phillips' masterful albeit loose reinvention of the DC source material make Joker a film that should leave comic book fans and non-fans alike disturbed and moved in all the right ways.