Joker: Folie à Deux – The Joke’s On Us
Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic
2019’s Joker was a commercial and critical success, culminating in actor Joaquin Phoenix winning an Oscar for portraying Arthur Fleck/Joker. Given this success, a sequel being greenlit would probably be an inevitability. Phoenix and director Todd Phillips collaborate again with this sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, but with a twist: the sequel is a musical.
The film picks up about two years after the events of the first film, with Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) languishing in Arkham prison, about to go on trial for the on-air murder he committed. He is something of a toy or pet for the guards, headed by Officer Sullivan (Brenden Gleeson). A chance encounter on his way to see his lawyer (Catherine Keener) brings Lee Quinzel/Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga) into his life. Her arrival also puts a song in his heart as sparks fly between them in the lead-up to Arthur being on center stage in the trial of the century.
Phoenix, ever the physical chameleon, once again makes himself into an emaciated and gaunt figure that would make Christian Bale envious. I hope he didn’t do this movie right after Beau Is Afraid, a film for which he put on a lot of weight. Fleck has become something of a cult figure to a vocal minority of Gotham City, and the frame of Arthur Fleck seems ill-equipped to bear the burden of expectations that comes with the newfound celebrity he has gained for his deeds.
For all of my complaints with the first film and however lukewarm I was about it, there’s no denying that Joaquin Phoenix is a fine actor. In continuing with this character, he still captures the duality of Arthur Fleck’s personality as both Arthur and Joker, making them distinct performances. Arthur is more submissive and deferential, whereas Joker has a presence and command that Arthur never could have. The face paint does transform him.
It's at least interesting to think of the duality of this character in comparison to The Joker’s archnemesis, Batman/Bruce Wayne. The duality of the character is a big theme in the Batman films and for any superhero who wears a mask, really. Are the personas two sides of the same coin, or is one a more accurate reflection of the real person underneath the mask?
To the film’s credit, there is some wrestling with the question of who Arthur Fleck is, and many people want to define that answer. The judicial system sees him as a murderer. The vocal mob outside the courthouse sees him as a voice for their outrage. The guards in Arkham see him as the plaything to tell them jokes and make them laugh, often at his expense. His lawyer wants to portray him as insane. Harley Quinn sees him simply as Joker, and everyone else hinders the real him. How Arthur Fleck ultimately defines himself is the crux of the movie.
This is the most generous reading of the film I could come up with because it is a textbook case of an unnecessary sequel. Not only is it unnecessary, but it is also deeply flawed in execution and shockingly inert.
Making the film a musical left many people scratching their heads, but also wondering if there was some hidden magic in going in such a unique direction. The musical element of this film brings absolutely nothing to the table. Every musical number occurs either in Joker’s head, Harley’s head, or in a shared delusion between the two completely detached from reality. I’m no musical expert, but the general impression I’ve gotten from the ones I have seen is that the songs should represent a heightened reality. There is little or none here; it’s just pure fantasy.
Casting Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn is an inspired choice, especially when you are making a musical. Strangely enough, she feels a little underutilized here. I’ve liked her in past roles I’ve seen, from A Star Is Born to House of Gucci. She has the acting chops to dive into a juicy role, and this one certainly could have been. Instead, she just too often feels like a cheerleader on the sideline rooting for her man.
Perhaps that is because the movie hamstrings itself by having so much of the film be about the trial of Joker. Courtroom dramas need compelling drama to be effective. Very little is dramatic about the open and shut case that is the trial here. The courtroom drama is replaced with an attempt to make it a circus, and it feels like the film is showing a lot of flop sweat in trying and failing to make it work. The only thing that made me laugh is when Arthur ultimately decides to represent himself and begins speaking like a simple country lawyer with a deep southern drawl.
The film is essentially the trial of Joker. The trial is very basic, and the verdict is a foregone conclusion, which makes the plot feel incredibly thin. Because of that, it feels like the musical aspect of the film was tacked on as fluff to pad this out to feature length. This does not come across as a sequel that was planned, nor does it feel like a sequel that adds in any significant way to the original film.
Aside from the presence of Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) as the district attorney trying the case, there is even less that ties this movie to the DC comic world than the first movie. If there is any mention of the Wayne family, I missed it. There is one background character that the camera lingers on in Arkham that very obviously hints at the ending of this movie. Speaking of hinting towards things ham-fistedly, his presence serves as little more than a Chekhov’s Harvey Dent, where a Harvey Dent introduced in the first act must become Two-Face by the third act. Dent almost looks like he was on the Doogie Howser track to becoming DA, portrayed by the now 27-year-old Lawtey, which means he was even younger when the movie was filmed. It was just odd casting.
Joker was an origin story we never really needed, but Warner Bros. made so much money off of it that they demanded a sequel. Joker: Folie à Deux is a sequel we certainly did not need. And given Todd Phillips’ track record with sequels (The Hangover trilogy, anyone?), Warner Bros. should have been more cautious about this one or at least had some warning bells going off in their heads when he came to them wanting to make this sequel a musical.
There have been other disasters this year at the box office, considering Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, but at least that was ambitious. The music doesn’t work, the twisted romance doesn’t work, and neither does the trial. Joker: Folie à Deux is just tone-deaf with hardly anything of substance to say or sing.
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars