In an interview with Variety, “Joker: Folie à Deux” director Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”) revealed that the original idea for a sequel to the 2019 smash hit “Joker” came to its star, Joaquin Phoenix (“Beau Is Afraid”), in a dream. “Joker” was an unexpected hit, building off the name of Batman’s most famous villain to make a bizarre, dark pastiche of “The King of Comedy” and “Taxi Driver” entirely unrelated to the caped crusader. The darkness of “Joker” tapped into something within American audiences, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie at the time and earning its star, Phoenix, Best Actor at the 2020 Oscars. However, a sequel was not guaranteed. “Joker” was no ordinary comic book film, ending on a morally ambiguous note that didn’t lend itself to an easy continuation. That is until Phoenix’s dream sparked its creation. His idea? Making “Joker 2” a musical and allow Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck to truly express himself through song and dance. From this “Joker: Folie à Deux” was born.
It’s a tragedy for audiences that Phoenix’s dream was fulfilled; for “Joker: Folie à Deux” is a disaster. Set immediately after the events of “Joker,” it follows Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, aka Joker, aka “Literally Me,” on trial for his murders committed in the original. Spending his time in Arkham Asylum, Fleck is brought to a music class by the corrupt guard Jackie (Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”) where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”), who encourages him to use the trial as a chance to embrace his identity as Joker, a populist hero raging against a corrupt system. And there are songs too!
Say what you will about the first “Joker,” at least it dared to rip off its inspirations, using DC Comics as a vessel to repackage Scorsese’s classics. Phillips doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing with any of “Folie à Deux,” only that he wants to rip off something. Movie musicals traditionally use their numbers as a chance to explore new formal horizons, advance the plot or revel in spectacle. On the other hand, “Folie à Deux” is seemingly a musical for no reason other than generating headlines about how weird it is that it’s a musical. No musical section in this film — a jukebox musical except for one unique Gaga number — provides any thematic value, almost as if Phillips is disinterested in the very concept of a musical film that he’s trying to make. The result is a narrative film that occasionally takes a diversion to sing at you for a couple of minutes, a disjointing experience that ruins the little momentum the film had in the first place.
The film primarily follows Fleck’s trial, with characters from “Joker” appearing to testify about the events. Now, if this sounds like the “Seinfeld” finale but about the Joker, that is because it is exactly like the “Seinfeld” finale but about the Joker. This constant insistence on self-reference allows the film little chance to build its own identity, with its entire thematic basis built on “Joker” established. The problem is that the movie’s only questions are those we’ve already answered before: Is Arthur Fleck truly embracing his identity as the Joker? Is this something worth celebrating? Where the original studied these questions through its narrative, “Folie à Deux” literally puts them on trial. This relitigation of the themes of “Joker” only serves to drain them of any value they may have once had.
Another thing that makes “Folie à Deux” even more frustrating is the deluge of talent available. Phoenix won an Oscar for his role in the first one, Gleeson is one of the finest actors alive and Lady Gaga has continually shown her versatility as a singer and actor. However, every single one of these performers is shoehorned into a one-dimensional, uninteresting performance. Phoenix is practically doing caricature work at this point, a facsimile that evokes more parody than it does a pathetic De Niro impression. If Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn character was written out of the film a day before shooting began, it would be a film fundamentally unchanged, both in merit and in practicality.
This begs the question: Who is “Joker: Folie à Deux” for?
Is it for general audiences? No, they hate it.
Is it for fans of films or musicals? Nope. This thing sucks.
Is it for comic fans and fans of “Joker?” That can’t be it. The courtroom sequences serve as a ritual of humiliation for diehard Joker fans. They treat Arthur Fleck as less of a martyr and more of an object of scorn. He is a pathetic loser who goes through every physical and mental torture that Phillips can think of in an attempt to seemingly shame fans of the original. He eventually gives up the very mantle of Joker, probably in response to the multitude of fans that embraced the character as representing them.
That leaves one possibility: This film was made entirely for the audience of deux, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix. I guess the rest of us just have the misfortune to be left in its wake.
Daily Arts Writer Will Cooper can be reached at wcoop@umich.edu.
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