A troubled comedian, but perhaps not quite like Tony Hancock.

Other familiar themes include the dysfunctional loner – something like Travis Bickle with a marginally more extreme hairstyle. Then again, a Mohican might have come across as more extreme in the real 1976, compared with wild green hair in a fictionalised version of 1981 as seen from the perspective of 2019.

A few more nods to Taxi Driver include a seemingly effortless performance from Robert de Niro, which also points us towards King of Comedy – a useful point of reference for anyone who’s actually seen King of Comedy. Ditto Alan Moore’s 1988 graphic novel ‘The Killing Joke” (not to be confused with the similarly titled British post-punk band) which may be even less useful as a point of reference, especially as copies in our local Waterstones had been unsportingly sealed up with plastic film. Depends on your demographic I suppose.

Joaquin Phoenix gives a performance which is as intense and impressive as expected. The trailer gives a pretty good idea of what to expect, although some commentators have been surprised by graphic violence in the origin story of a fictional deranged homicidal criminal. We’re now at something like the backlash to the backlash and the difference between depicting bad stuff and inciting it seems to have sunk in, dispelling the moral panic for a while (see also Fight Club, 20 years old in another dispiriting anniversary). Always tempting to shoot the messenger though…

Quite a bit of social commentary, individual disintegration reflecting wider issues in society, unaccountable sociopathic clowns etc., so maybe not the escapist fantasy one might be looking for.

Definitely worth catching on the big screen – great cinematography, very well written, acted and directed. And also quite funny in (mostly inappropriate) places, in amongst the moral disintegration, violence, mayhem and clown makeup.