Without a doubt, the technicalities of the movie were beautiful. The cinematography captured each moment with precision and the costume department chose clothes that could not be more quintessential to the Joker’s character. However what makes a makes the movie is the story not all the bells and whistles.

When it comes to the movie “The Joker” there seems to be no middle ground. Either the movie was the most appalling thing anyone had watched or that it was the movie absolutely everyone has to see. Soon critics were even worried about how the film could inspire some individual to follow a similar descent into madness.

The story follows the life of Arthur Fleck and his transformation into the Joker. Right off the bat we see that Fleck has a few mental illnesses, he is on several medications and is clearly suffering from pathological laughing. The program he receives his prescriptions from is being cut and we see Fleck’s sanity and patience slip away.

To dispel the fear that this is a likely scenario we have to keep in mind that the movie is set in 1981, and although the Arkham is a fictional city, it is a possibility that it was set in 1981 because that was the year former-president Ronald Reagan cut down funding for mental health centers across the nation. Today, mental health is more widely talked about and although stigma still surrounds it, there were different factors affecting Fleck.

However, it is not surprising why some may think someone could take inspiration from the film considering the crude violence in the movie was some of the most realistic violence on screen. Unlike superhero movies the violence is not some dramatized scene, where you see projectiles fly towards an enemy in slow motion. It may be best to skip the film if graphic violence is something hard stomach.

The life-like violence on screen, psychotic break and Fleck’s diminishing lack of reality, and Joaquin Phoenix’s new take on the Joker, gives insight into the creation of the infamous character.