joker is on prime

[MrsLargeEmbodied]

anyone recommend this?

I really really hated everything about it, Joaquin did a great job but I just found it a tedious slog to the end

I'm interested to know how much people thought was his imagination. The whole thing?

I also heard that many people thought he killed his neighbour and the director released a scene that proved he didn't because so many people thought it.

I was mystified why anyone thought he did.

Also, I haven't read anything Batman related, so wondered if this depiction of Gotham City was literally intended as New York in the 80s or the period where it was really rough.

I admired it, but didn't like it, if that makes sense.

I would never watch it again.

I thought that Frances Conroy was fantastic in her role as Penny (Arthur's mother).

@DaisyNGO

I'm interested to know how much people thought was his imagination. The whole thing?

I also heard that many people thought he killed his neighbour and the director released a scene that proved he didn't because so many people thought it.

I was mystified why anyone thought he did.

Also, I haven't read anything Batman related, so wondered if this depiction of Gotham City was literally intended as New York in the 80s or the period where it was really rough.

There was a scene shot where his neighbour was watching him on TV, which showed he hadn’t killed her, but the director said it spoiled the flow of the TV narrative so was edited out. I never thought he did. The essential ‘Him’ was not a nasty incel type. He reacted to bullying and being framed by someone he thought was a friend. Any interaction with his neighbour beyond the wry exchange in the faulty lift and her being horrified he was in her flat was his imagination, though.

Gotham City is suitable to many interpretations, depending on the writer/director/illustrator’s point of view. The 80s setting in this film was appropriate because you could make a strong case for that era being the age when false celebrity really took off, humiliation of ordinary people was becoming entertainment, rich entrepreneurs like Thomas Wayne could put on the veneer of munificence while being just as rapacious and corrupt as those that had come before them.
Also, no place for people with mental health issues, that previously would have seen them at least looked after to some extent in the old asylums.

I think Thomas Wayne was his father and that he’d had his mother shut away and branded insane to keep her quiet.

"Any interaction with his neighbour beyond the wry exchange in the faulty lift and her being horrified he was in her flat was his imagination, though. "

One option is the whole thing being his imagination.

I mean the whole film...

Could be! That’s one of the reasons I like it. I love films like that (Inception, Identity, Shutter Island), where you have to pick apart the plot and decide what’s real and what isn’t.
So, you could say that once his medication was stopped and he was sacked, the rest is the way he wanted it to happen, but the reality is he broke down and went to Arkham Asylum. But then again, I don’t see him dreaming violent revenge - he’d be more likely to dream a Happy Ever After with his neighbour.

That’s a neat tip of the hat to Heath Ledger’s Joker in Nolan’s film too - different backstories, all plausible, perhaps none of them true.
And of course Bruce Wayne is going to hate him forever more, because media myth is going to spin it that The Joker, not A Joker killed his father. So when in some parallel Batman universe a Baddie releases The Joker from Arkham Asylum maybe that’s when he would really take on the mantle of the character.

I

@DaisyNGO - yes, I wondered that too. He was so 'desperate' to be popular & powerful that he imagined the whole thing.

Not as good as Taxi Driver although Arthur’s/Jokers mental health problems were more relatable than Travis Bickles mh problems. I can’t relate to ptsd from the Vietnam war but I can relate to general society treating you like shit so Joker seemed more “real” to me personally iyswim

And personally I think none of it happened. It was all in his head. But...he must have done at least one bad thing to end up in the asylum. Perhaps he really did kill his mother and everything else was his imagination.

The media were disgusting about the film before it was released with all the articles predicting an incel would shoot up a cinema during a showing of it. It was like they wanted it to happen.

I think almost none of it happened

I think his imagination was too realistic to imagine that he'd have a love in with the neighbour.

I had no idea the press said that about incels. The main fuss I recall - not saying my memory is accurate - was a lot of upset about the train scene, the first one.

There were concerns that the Colorado cinema shooting could be replicated (2012, at a showing of The Dark Knight Rises). Families of those affected lobbied successfully for Joker not to be screened there, which is understandable, I suppose. The press did whip that up into a general anti-anything-Joker frenzy.

As for complaints about the train scene……well, that sort of thing happens, as so many women, girls and vulnerable people try to tell us time and time again. I found it difficult to empathise with the 3 predatory men tbh.

I was very, er, pleased with the train scene.

The press is so "much ado about nothing" I can't recall what the precise objection was. I remember friends and colleagues warning me about it in a very serious tone as well.

I was in treatment for A&D at the time, but that film made me feel better about it rather than worse.

Absolutely loved it & will definitely be watching it again

I thought apart from him seeing his neighbour (and it was clearly shown later he had been imagining it all), the rest actually happened. I did wonder about the Wayne thing, did Wayne make up the adoption and her being obsessed with him and crazy or was she truly delusional? Is there anyway of really knowing?

I thought it was a brilliant, thought-provoking, moving film but, like previous posters, I would never want to watch it again. A bit like Requiem for a Dream, or Promising Young Woman.

Joaquin Phoenix richly deserved that Oscar.