What I Expected & More Done Very Well

Rating: 9/10 (23 October 2019)

There have been so many Joker actors over the years that I expected this one to be a fractured world of a disfunctional life. What I did not expect is the great script and Phoenix to raise the Joker to a whole new level. When you take this story as a whole you can see and feel why the Joker is who he is. The depth this film establishes is beyond what I expected.
I found some of the reason this works so well is the script writers both have some pretty good films under their belt, in particular The Hangover and that's the perfect writing style to design a Joker script. The Director here directed Hangover too which does not hurt. They really wrote a great script.
It is the actors who make it work. Besides Phoenix, Robert De Niro to me was a major surprise in support. When I first saw that he was doing a Carson type talk show type rip-off, I thought boring, I've seen it done before. Then, as the film moved on, suddenly De Niro brought a special something to the role. I'd say a Best Supporting Actor is possible for the actor here.
Zazie Beetz stuck out to me too, as Joker's well, I am not sure you can classify it as girlfriend but then again you can. To me she not only played her role well, she also had a really strong attraction here which I can not quantitify. Her script is kind of limited and the background of her character is not completed, but her skills are really shown off. Frances Conroy's mom's character is solid too. Brett Cullen for some reason reminds me of Alec Baldwin in looks, and he is fine here though not much script.
The story creates a strong sympathy for Joker, and then shows the horrifying results in a way that has not been done before. There is also this strange thing between Joker's character and young boys that is a tension presented throughout this movie. Joker's character has tension, and an ironic comment on Government which enables him to string out of drugs while receiving supposed sponsored theraphy, then pulls the rug out from under him with budget cuts. I give the movie credit though, as it is not presented that the budget cuts actually caused Joker's problems. He is much more conflicted than that. His involvement with the Wayne family is quite unique. Does mom really know best is the question you have to ask yourself? I never thought that maybe the Joker might need to go on (spoiler) Maury for a DNA test?
There is little to critic in this one other than timeline, as it's not real clear in parts where the date really is. Then again, this movie proves we don't really need to know what time it is to present a well-told story. Most everything fits, as a life fractured in a fractured city is what this is.
We do know how it fits with other films of the saga. It is one of the strongest DC based films in a long while. Timeline was a theme in Hangover, but this drama goes way beyond just a hangover.