Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers, 2018) gives his naturally idiosyncratic edge to the title role in this film offering a psychologically twisted and disarming origin story of Batman's greatest arch enemy. Phoenix plays an ordinary man working as a party clown with an unusual sense of humor and zero friends in a dirty, graffiti-covered, 1970s Gotham city. The continuous violence, loneliness, and aloof neglect surrounding him gradually push him into an eternal carnival ride of madness that is shaky, dangerous, revolutionary, and bloody.