AJ Burns

All of the critics who are slamming this as a weak attempt to push a social issue, get over it! Release yourself from that and see this for what it is, an excellent portrayal of a traumatized boy growing up into a world where he has no anchor. Doing his best to survive and care for the woman he believed to have done her best to raise him. He starts as an innocent being rattled from the expected trust a child should have in the world. Pushed to his limits while attempting to stay reality based, he gets lost and hurt (emotionally and physically). Phoenix is gripping and otherworldly. In the background plays out the whole Batman understory. I’m still riveted by this story, days after seeing it. Not to mention the musicography kept the hair on my skin raised and the tears in my eyes welling. No need to rush to see in theaters, the story is what propels Joker to a level of which I have not experienced since Pulp Fiction.