Living in a run down apartment where he cares for his ailing mother one of the bright spots is watching Murray Franklin's (Robert DeNiro) TV talk show with her. Arthur idolises Franklin and dreams of one day making an appearance on it.
No good will come of this.
This unexpected 2019 box office behemoth is still powerful today.
Fleck is undeniably downtrodden but also lacking naturally good instincts and Phoenix manages to convey real complexity such that you can sympathise with, pity and despise him at various points, often in quite close succession. It does suffer from the "person comes off their medication/therapy and becomes evil" trope and for that it's problematic but that seems so intrinsic to the character that you'd just have to not make the movie at all to avoid it.
You can see the inevitable trajectory from a mile off but you're glued to the screen. Tragic and one of the great character performances of the last few years with Phoenix dominating almost every scene. 9/10 highly recommend.