A Tour De Force For Phoenix

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2019)

They might as well go ahead and engrave Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar now, because, yes, he really is that good in this role. The movie wisely decides to tell the Joker's origin story in a fairly unfantastical and realistic way and his performance helps ground the entire movie. If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't have even known this was a superhero movie (or at least that it exists in the same world).
Phoenix plays a socially awkward clown who just can't get a break. He's his mother's only caretaker and they both share a lot of equally insane delusions. She believes her former employer will, one day, come and bail them out of a life of poverty and he believes that he's destined to become a brilliant comedian despite telling horrible jokes. As the film progresses, his psyche begins to unravel and a violent chance encounter with a group of rich thugs turns him into a surprise hero for the underclass of the city.
I'm sure you've heard that Joker is pretty much a Taxi Driver ripoff and it sort of is, but with a few different spins that make it worth a watch at least. It's not a masterpiece or a classic like many other have said only because it feels like it consists of characters, themes, and situations we've seen a million times before and done better at that. The film is worth seeing for Phoenix's unhinged, go for broke performance. It's a thing of beauty.