How could a Joker movie without Batman possibly work? 2019`s Joker, directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, answers that question with a simple twist on the classic villain: by making the Joker an accidental antihero who inspires the downtrodden people of Gotham to rise up against Wall Street fat cats and the `fascists` in City Hall. Joker doesn`t need Batman because this time, he`s the hero--the villains of this movie are poverty, neglect, and oppression. Yes, we live in a society, Joker expounds--a society that stinks. We should burn it to the ground.Arthur Fleck`s plight is all too believable. A clown-for-hire by day, Fleck cares for his sickly mother (Frances Conroy) in their rundown apartment and half-heartedly tries to flirt with his neighbor down the hall, Sophie (Zazie Beetz). He doesn`t know his father, but he has plenty of surrogates--from the co-worker who gives him a gun with which to protect himself, to late-night TV host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), from whom Fleck fantasizes about fatherly hugs and paternal admissions like `I`d give all this up to have a son like you.`But Arthur Fleck is not well. Although he functions somewhat normally thanks to a regular cornucopia of pills, the would-be comedian--who writes jokes in a notebook filled with scribbled-on pornography, but has never told one on a stage--is no stranger to four white walls and a straitjacket. He meets with a social worker, but he suspects she doesn`t actually listen to anything he says. Add to the mix a neurological condition--or maybe an early-life head injury--that causes him to sporadically burst into painfully uncontrollable laughter, usually at the worst possible times.This is a version of Joker we`ve never seen before. There have been origin stories, but rarely have the details of his life--from his real name to his immediate family members--been so explicitly laid out. Fleck doesn`t start out bad in this movie--in fact, he`s legitimately trying to be good. ...
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