Joker Review: 9 Ups & 3 Downs

7. The Unflinching Portrait Of Mental Health Issues

Mental health advocacy is a hugely important thing these days, which is why it looked very much like there might be some issues in Joker about fetishising psychosis or claiming genuine mental health issues in a perverse, exploitative way.

I can say, with great relief and a huge amount of respect for what Phoenix and Phillips have achieved that that isn't the case. Fleck's conditions (and not only his) are clearly the result of intense, sympathetic research. He's never a victim of exploitative gaze and there is a welcome invitation to empathise with him as someone being chewed up and spit out by a broken machine.

The film is also quite careful not to say some of the things about his mental health issues that some people accused it of even before seeing it. And crucially, it explores areas of the mental health industry that are only vaguely talked about - the realities of limitations on funding, the lack of progress in some dependants, how people get missed. It's uncomfortable viewing, but that's because we're the ones failing them.