Wow! Just Wow!

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2019)

Wasn't really excited about seeing this movie, really ambivalent about Joaquin Phoenix actually, but my son wanted to go. Suffice it to say, I'm no longer ambivalent about Joaquin Phoenix! He is phenomenal as Arthur/Joker, without being cartoonish, over-the-top, or in-your-face crazy. His is a very very dark, but realistic, portrayal of years and years and years of insults, abuse, being dismissed as a nobody, to finally being essentially invisible, a non-entity, worthless, while slowly and painfully breaking down and apart from the inside out, until his transformation into the Joker. Phoenix made me feel sorry for Arthur; I cared about him, and could easily follow and understand how he could become Joker....I think that's a HUGE difference from all the other 1 dimensional versions of Joker. The violence is not scary or off-putting at all; rather, what horrified me the most is not only the breaking down of a human spirit so radically and completely, over a long course of time, by anyone and almost everyone that crossed paths with him, but also the realization that it is happening every single day outside of the movie theater, to real people. And no one did a thing to help him. Phoenix makes this comic book character so human, you are compelled to feel his pain and despair, and you can't NOT feel compassion for him! Definitely worth seeing!