There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the film Joker, there has been talk of awards and Oscars, there has been praise and adoration as well as criticism and sharp commented dislikes. With an open and mind and trying to set aside all expectations and since I had today off from the day-job I attended a late screening.

Joker  is a possible origin story for the iconic nemesis of that caped crusader Batman. I say possible because the cannon for the comic book character stretches back many decades and as with all comic book histories that ancient it is filled with revisions, reboots, and flat out contradictions in the character’s backstory.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck a troubled young man living with his mother in the decaying crime infested city of Gotham during the turbulent 1980s. Arthur makes his living as a clown, working promoting dying businesses as they hoist one final sale and providing mediocre entertainment to children in hospitals. Suffering from an unnamed neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable fits of laughter whenever Arthur is emotionally stressed Arthur dreams of success as a comic, living out detailed delusions of what he life might be as his mother sends endless letters to Thomas Wayne lost in her own delusions. As economic, physical, and mental stress takes their toll of Arthur his losses the frail support network he barely possesses and soon confronts terrible truths about himself and truth of his life. Caught between fantasy and reality and unable to tell the two apart he loses his identity and discovers a new one.

My opinion on this film is somewhere between the two extremes that are common on the Internet; the film is interesting and had a decidedly pointed theme it is trying to express. This film is a commentary on the result of a society that ignores the under-privileged, the unreal world of the wealthy and the pressures that explode from that dangerous combination. Yet this film is also flawed. Nearly all of the film is from Arthur’s point of view and that is on point, it is his story we are experiencing, and yet there are sequences where the story steps away from Arthur solely for the purpose and nudging the audience in the side with reminders that this take place in DC’s continuity. These excursion weaken the story, undercut the theme and serve no purpose but fan service. This film also felt like it didn’t quite know how it wanted to end. Twice before it actually ended the director services up visions that would have made for a powerful final image, only to continue the film with unrequired wrap-up.

Some of the criticism I have read and heard about this film I think say more about the critics than the film. Much like Star Wars: The Last Jedi  it seems a number of people came into their screenings with preconceived notions of the film and its subject matter and those pre-judgments formed the core of their critique, however unlike The Last Jedi  these critics hail from the liberal side of the political spectrum and betray their biases just as much of the right’s criticism betrayed theirs.

Over all this film was well made and interesting, a little editing would improve it punch, but it achieves neither the heights or the lows so many are ascribing to it.