Joker

What the film wants to say — about mental illness or class divisions in society — is not as interesting as what it accidentally says about whiteness.

Joaquin Phoenix, in another outstanding performance.

Not only an intelligent throwback to the feel-bad shock cinema of the 1970s, Joker is all but unique in its social realism...

The result of these creative decisions, however, is that whatever power Joker, as a pop culture icon, might wield, Joker, as a movie, feels toothless.

Joker doesn't understand its representation of violence because it doesn't know what to do with its politics, opting instead for a confused aestheticization of anarchy, all incendiary chants and masked malcontents thronging the streets.

Joker is a jumble - sometimes brilliant and sometimes trite. Among its flashes of excellence is a self-serious movie that isn't nearly as deep as it thinks it is.

…over two films, Joker looks rather different from the edgy-origin story this was taken to be on initial release. ..the second film amplified the messaging but that corrosive message about the dangeous direction society was heading was here all along...

It had me at the beginning and the last half hour or more is superb, but Phillips earnest, deliberate efforts to tie it into the DC Comics universe and heavy-handed stab at making it germane to socioeconomic issues hurt my suspension of disbelief.

Joker, directed by Todd Phillips, is the worst kind of bad film. It’s a technically proficient and gorgeously presented falsehood. One that rejects responsibility as it strives to understand and empathize with the stereotypical white mass murderer.

The environment and its atmosphere are a central aspect narratively, that is why Joker begins with a description of that city which, like New York from Taxi Driver, is represented as a putrid place with social violence and rising class resentment.