It’s 1981, and Gotham is on the brink of chaos. The streets are covered in trash—owing to a citywide Garbage Strike; poverty is rampant; and
mental-health facilities are shuttering due to a scarcity of funds.
(Picture the noirish scape of Taxi Driver overrun by a particularly vicious strain of “super rats.”) Into that void saunters Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a clown by day and struggling stand-up comic by night. Arthur lives
with his elderly mother (Frances Conroy) in a run-down Bronx apartment,
and, in true Norman Bates fashion, worships the ground she walks
on—bathing her, confiding in her, and spending every night with her
tuning in to their favorite variety show, Live with Murray Franklin. In Murray (Robert De Niro), Arthur sees the solicitous father figure he never had.