Joker: The Clown Prince of crime is here!

So I  realise it has been many months since I've last blogged but I had to come out of hibernation because last night I saw Joker. Firstly there may be light spoilers so feel free to miss this blog post and read it once you've seen it. As it is such a brilliant movie I want you to go in completely clear.
So with SPOILERS AHOY lets move on to the review.

QUICK PLOT OVERVIEW: Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Pheonix) is a clown and aspiring comedian who lives with his sick mother, Penny (Frances Conroy). He lives in a small apartment in a crumbling apartment complex in Gotham and suffers from a condition that makes him laugh at the wrong moments. With social services being cut and his world falling apart around him in a spiral of riots against the rich Arthur slowly starts becoming someone that will change Gotham city forever.

Firstly can Todd Phillips, Joaquin Pheonix and the whole of the cast and crew take a huge round  of applause for just how incredible this film is. I got out of it completely in awe and stunened by it. It managed to really invoke for me films like You Were Never Really Here (review here) with of course a huge dollop of Scorcese thrown in.

Gotham is a cesspit like we have never seen it before even the Gotham tV show didn't show Gotham this bad. It's crumbling and stinking with rats crawling the streets and bin bags everywhere. It's vast clouds of smoke and strips of shops and cinemas. Yet it manages to feel claustrophobic.

Arthur takes up very little space at the beginning. His job is just to dress up as a clown for various opportunities and he enjoys it. He then goes home cares for his mother and watches the Murray show which he dreams of being on (Murray is played by Robert de Niro). Slowly his dreams twist as everything seems to be taken away.

As this happens though he changes physically. He begins to dance, his childish tone of voice changes into something more confident. It never feels like a charicature or that he's putting on the Joker persona though as we see him morph into him organically. His mind gets worse, the reveals into his backstory get worse and yet his confidence continues to build. The riots on the streets and the clown masks literally leading him to becoming the clown prince of crime.

But it's the dancing that will stay with me. Pheonix's physicial presence is just incredible. The way he dances is similar to a monster transformation in that with every move he moves further away from Arthur Fleck. It's just incredible. I really hope for award season showers him in recognition for this.

Finally we see the Joker fully formed walking away with blood on his shoes stuck in an endless loop of escaping, causing chaos and being thrown back in to Arkham. That final shot has stuck with me for how clinical it is and yet strangely hopeful. Arthur is now long gone and The Joker is here to plague Gotham for good.

To be honest there are huge parts I'm leaving out as I can't bear to spoil them for you. However all I can say is drop everything and see this film Joaquin Pheonix is incredible and this film may be the most iconic of the year if not the decade.