10 Subtle Details That Make Joaquin Phoenix's Joker Incredible

5. He's A Mimic

In the interviews that Phoenix has given when he talked about pathological laughter and how it informed his performance as Arthur, he also, intriguingly mentioned mimicry. It's something tied to pathological emotional responses and it's important here because Arthur is the very definition of a mimic.

Whenever he interacts with another character, he tends to adopt their mannerisms. When the other clowns mock Gary for his dwarfism, Arthur bursts out into his fake laugh because everyone else is. When Sophie comes to his door and leans on it, he copies, when Brian Tyree Henry's admin clerk calls him "man", Arthur reflects it back to him. He learns how to be a stand-up by watching them and writing explicit notes, he prepares for Murray's show by copying other guests.

And there's a far more subtle one too: in the chilling climactic scene that sees Arthur kill Murray Franklin live on TV, he repeatedly over-pronounces words, extending vowels in what appears to be a mocking tone. The reality is that this a side of his performance and it is, again, a mimicked action.

When we first see Arthur putting on his Carousel clown makeup, there's a sign above his mirror that reads "you look mah-velous", written to spell out the same verbal tic. It's there as a comfort blanket to Arthur and in the end, he adopts the mantra for his big performance. It could be mimicked from 1950s eccentric actor Fernando Lamas (who Billy Crystal sent up on Saturday Night Live with that very phrase - "you look mahvelous" - in the mid-1980s), but whatever the case, it's Arthur borrowing from elsewhere to perform at being real.