Oscar worthy performance

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2019)

I never thought I'd see the day when someone would portray the Joker in as captivating a way as Heath Ledger. Well, the day has come! Joaquin Phoenix's embodiment of Arthur Fleck was legendary. This is not to say that Phoenix outdid Ledger. I don't think it is truly possible to compare them side by as they are telling very different stories. Ledger's performance was a portrayal of the unhinged, psychotic, Clown Prince of Crime who wanted to watch the world burn and was done masterfully. Phoenix, on the other hand, was telling the story of Arthur Fleck, the mentally ill, awkward, dissociated yet initially pitiable man who would metamorphose into the Joker. His depiction of the Joker felt less like an evil criminal mastermind bent on destroying everything and more like Russell Crowe's depiction of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, albeit far less beautiful, far more unnerving, and I don't believe that John Nash ever stabbed someone with scissors and beat their head into a wall. At the beginning, I empathized with Arthur Fleck. He was a man who the universe chewed up. He suffered from severe mental illness, a society on the verge of collapse and was an outcast. In the scene on the bus when he was trying to entertain the little boy until the boy's mother chastised him, I almost cried. I felt he was just defending himself in his first killings, until he chased down the last of the three men and shot him multiple times. He was relatable. I didn't find it at all difficult to follow his slow, devolving descent into hell and murder.
A truly excellent movie!