DK ..

Wonderfully crafted thought provoking dialogues and masterful delivery of Hugh Grant elevate the overall experience to be a nail biting survival thriller. It is not how one survies the threat, rather it is why one should survive.

As Frank SInatra sang "yet you're my favorite piece of art", I couldn't agree more. 'Joker' is such a powerful yet poignant experience, that within 10 minutes of the movie it was very clear that I am watching a masterpiece. Although it takes the content and the premise from the Batman comics, it never gives a single moment of pleasure of reading comic book. It does not give any pleasure at all. This movie takes on the origin story of a maniac serial killer from a very humane angle. The character of Arthur Fleck is so commonplace that you almost instantly relate to the vulnerability of it. You can always imagine yourself in those same situations where you have nowhere to run. Your environment, your society beats you to pulp, yet you don't have the courage to give it back to the people whom it came from. Joker delves in that dark dejection and brings up the murderous insanity which on a bad day can get the better of you. Arthur Fleck tried his best to keep his world smiling but the world never smiled back at him. Instead it thumped him so hard that nothing but emotional tar had come out in the form of a delusional murderer. The violence in this movie which has created a major controversy worldwide is not about blood and gore. It is rather so psychological that everybody can feel a bit of Joker in himself. I never believed a movie can affect a normal person so much. Well, this movie can. The infamous "Bathroom scene", which is already being touted as the most disturbing scene ever created, is astonishingly eerie. The background score is so sinister that you can feel the chill in your bones. No CGI, no special effect was needed. A very bleak dance coupled with an evil piece of music in a gloomy bathroom was enough to herald the emergence of a frightening monster. Such was the power of it, one could hear muffled cheers and gasps from the audience simultaneously. Direction, cinematography, plot development, usage of old classics like Smile, everything about this movie is art at its purest. But what takes the cake, is Joaquin Phoenix's performance. Words fall short to describe this act. The calm yet mad look in his eyes, unmindful eerie pauses, tired body language create a visual poetry of insanity. His borderline spastic style of dialogue delivery pens such a requiem for his innocence that one can't stop feeling bad for Arthur Fleck.To be very honest I have never been overwhelmed by Heath Ledger's Joker. It had its moments, in some places Ledger's acting was really brilliant. But it lacked the emotion, the depth. Ledger's joker was one dimensional. It was a villain through and through. There was never a second's space to relate otherwise. Phoenix's Joker gives us that space. Such is the extent of empathy it evokes, that the audience almost root for his crimes till it becomes so shocking that nobody could take it anymore. As I said before, within ten minutes of starting, the performance of Phoenix reaches an astronomical level which has rarely been touched by anybody. Phoenix delivers at that level for two very long hours. This deep, dark portrayal of a fragile psyche will certainly be regarded as one for the ages. Phoenix has cemented his status as an all time great with this. It will be very lofty to hail this movie as one of the greatest I have ever seen. But 'Joker' provided somewhat like a twisted cerebral catharsis, which I never experienced before. That said, Joker is an uniquely personal movie, which must not be watched with your famiily. "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." ,