SPOILERS: Joaquin Phoenix is in almost every scene of this movie, and we come to see he is an unreliable narrator by the end of the movie as some parts of the movie are his delusions. Phoenix really drives the whole movie, in fact, as the rest of the cast is not given much to do. But his performance is brilliant, and won him a well-deserved Oscar.
Here’s the story in a nutshell: easy access to guns bad, untreated mental illness bad, economic inequality bad. Combine all of them together…REALLY bad. It comes off, IMO, as a warning to fix these problems, and soon, as these fictionalized events could happen in real life.
I don’t think this movie is the masterpiece some fans make it out to be, and I don’t think it is the call-to-arms some of its detractors say it is. Most of the movie is just sad and unpleasant. Joaquin is all in, and that lifts this movie up from being okay to pretty good.
