"I used to think that my life was a tragedy. But now I realize, it's a fucking comedy."

In 1981, in a decaying, crime-ridden Gotham City, clown Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), who suffers from a neurological disorder, dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian. When he loses his job and social services is no longer able to support him, Arthur slowly descents into madness ...

Joker is a psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips, based on the DC Comics character of the same name. It won two Academy Awards (Best Actor for Phoenix and Best Original Score).

Phillips' movie isn't part of the DC Extended Universe, but a standalone film, which is certainly confusing, considering there's already a Joker in the DCEU. However, Warner Bros. had decided to greenlight other movies based on DC characters as well, giving us gems like Joker. (In the future, films like this will be part of the announced DC Elseworlds label, differentiating them more clearly from the upcoming DC Universe.)

It takes a lot of guts to make a movie like this, the study of a character which has been played to perfection before, while competing with another version at the same time. But director Phillips and his brillant leading man Phoenix turned it into a triumph, and a commercially successful one, earning more than $1 billion on a rather small budget, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. It also won a number of awards, among them the Golden Lion and an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, as well as another for Hildur Guðnadóttir's brillant, haunting score.

Now, this is a somewhat different interpretation of Batman's archenemy, and it strips away much comic book lore. Still, there's just enough comic book in Joker to make it work, even for a fan like me. It actually feels much more like a comic book movie as Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, for example, even if it doesn't necessarily aims to be one.

Next to taking many inspirations from a great graphic novel, The Killing Joke, it also leans heavy on Martin Scorsese's films, first and foremost Taxi Driver, and somehow, Phillips makes it work.

The movie is, of course, build around one of the most mesmerizing acting achievements ever put on screen, a raw, physical, visceral and vulnerable powerhouse performance by Joaquin Phoenix you will never forget. While in The Killing Joke, the Joker's theory is "everyone is just one bad day from madness", here, just like in the real world, it takes many bad days and a broken system letting them down.

In conclusion, Joker explores themes like mental illness, making the experience of watching the movie uncomfortable at times, but it's also a film everyone should watch, with a career-best performance by Joaquin Phoenix.