By George & Josh Bate
When Joker arrived in theaters in 2019, it made an impact that transcended the movie industry. Brooding, disturbing, and thoughtful, Todd Phillips’ film redefined what can be achieved with a comic book movie in telling an emotionally resonant, thematically powerful story that profoundly connected with audiences. So effective was Joker as a contained, one-off story that many questioned the decision to make a sequel (although, financially, the whopping $1.079 billion gross made a sequel somewhat inevitable). Now, exactly five years since the first film’s release, Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters and attempts to similarly captivate audiences with a continuation of Arthur Fleck’s story.
Joker: Folie à Deux picks up two years after the events of Joker and sees Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck imprisoned in Arkham State Hospital. Downtrodden and beaten down like never before, Arthur lives a depressed, quiet life behind bars, ridiculed by prison guards and left to simmer with the consequences of his actions from the first movie. As Arthur’s legal team prepares him for a trial that could see him transferred to a more suitable facility, Arthur comes across fellow Arkham inmate Lee (played by Lady Gaga), and the two begin a twisted romance.
Despite receiving 11 Academy Award nominations (and winning for both Best Actor and Best Original Score), Joker has received more mixed reception over the years since its release. For us though, the film holds up incredibly well. Simple in its storytelling, yet purposefully dense and thoughtful in the themes it explores and emotions it captures, Joker persists as a harrowing depiction of mental illness and the consequences that can result when a person is continuously left behind and mistreated by everyone and every system around him. On the one hand, Joker was perfect as a one-off film, as originally envisioned by writer/director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix. But, on the other hand, there was a lot of potential for a sequel. The ending featured Arthur being imprisoned in the iconic Arkham Asylum (dubbed Arkham State Hospital in the film), which opened the door for all sorts of interesting directions, and has a seemingly endless number of stories and plot points to draw upon from the 84 year history of the character in comics. In this sense, us, like many, proceeded into this sequel with a mix of trepidation and excitement.
It’s with great disappointment then that Joker: Folie à Deux ultimately fails to match the brilliance of its predecessor, although this is an admittedly high bar to reach. Perhaps more damning is that the film doesn’t assuredly justify its existence, instead playing out as a misguided and confused continuation of the story.
This doesn’t seem to be the case as the movie begins though. The audience is reintroduced to Arthur, who looks more destroyed than ever before. Disturbingly thin with a sickly looking pallor, the character is a far cry from the Arthur beaming with smile and twisted laughter at the end of the last movie. The guards at Arkham belittle Arthur, taunting him to make them laugh with jokes, while any semblance of happiness he once had has faded away entirely. It is a grim start, both aesthetically and narratively, but one that continues the theme of its predecessor in highlighting just how woefully society continues to fail Arthur Fleck.
The first act of the film takes things slowly and eases audiences back into the depressive state of Arthur’s mind. Where things begin to go awry is with the introduction of Lady Gaga’s Lee character and the way the movie changes both stylistically and thematically following her introduction. From an acting standpoint, Lady Gaga is phenomenal in the film. Much like Phoenix did in the first movie, Gaga conveys deep-rooted sadness with exceptional authenticity here and portrays broken so well. Despite the strength of this performance, however, Gaga’s presence in the movie ushers in changes to the film that weaken the viewing experience.
Much was made during the development of this sequel that it would be a musical, and while some ahead of its release have downplayed the extent to which the film fits into this genre, make no mistake about it – Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical. Inherently, the Joker sequel being a musical is not a bad thing. In fact, music plays a large role in the first Joker, with Todd Phillips in interviews discussing that he believed Arthur has a certain “music in him.” The problem is that the musical sequences in Folie à Deux predominate and take over everything, while offering very little additional to the film. The musical sequences play out as shared delusions or visions of Arthur and Lee (hence the film’s title ‘Folie à Deux,’ which refers to shared psychosis or delusions). While these sequences are grand and beautifully choreographed, there are far too many of them and each of them overstays their welcome. More than that, these sequences feel repetitive as their narrative and symbolic importance is largely the same for each of them. It is understandable that a Joker features a surreal element like this, but the execution of such an element leaves much to be desired as the film becomes bogged down in repetitive and overly long musical sequences.
The interruptions caused by these musical sequences mean the film lacks flow and feels rather aimless, increasingly so as it progresses. Contributing to this aimlessness is how extremely convoluted the film’s messaging and themes are. The beginning of the film kicks off with an animated sequence in which Arthur is tormented by his evil shadow. The shadow follows him around and eventually knocks Arthur out, taking his place and committing evil deeds while Arthur is out of it. This animated short makes more sense when Arthur’s lawyer (played by Catherine Keener) reveals that Arthur’s legal defense for his actions will be that he has split or multiple personality disorder, and that the Joker personality was the one who committed the murders, not Arthur. The duality of Arthur and Joker then becomes the dominant theme in the film, with the question of whether they constitute one person or two separate personalities posed and explored from the beginning to the end of the movie. An exploration of this theme isn’t inherently and necessarily flawed, but how the film goes about exploring it is convoluted and muddled. As the film progresses, Arthur increasingly embraces the personality of Joker and, in turn, buys into public perceptions that he is indeed this trailblazing political agent. The film heavily incorporates how others, including Lee, perceive Arthur / Joker and the extent to which Arthur believes in these perceptions, but the messaging is just so confused, a stark contrast to the blissful simplicity and directness of the first film’s themes.
This duality with Arthur and Joker also comes up in the film’s courtroom scenes, of which there are many. Indeed, much of the second half of the film takes place in a courtroom as Arthur is prosecuted by Harvey Dent (played by Harry Lawtey) for the murders he committed in Joker. Like the musical scenes, these courtroom scenes largely miss the mark. If Joker drew inspiration from Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, Joker: Folie à Deux drew inspiration from courtroom dramas like To Kill a Mockingbird and Kramer vs. Kramer, although is unfortunately devoid of the intensity and drama that made those courtroom sequences so compelling (meanwhile, the opportunity to lean into the Arkham setting and borrow from another 70s classic in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is missed entirely).
It doesn’t help that one of the most prominent actors in these courtroom scenes – Harry Lawtey as Harvey Dent – feels miscast. Lawtey is a fine actor, as demonstrated by his role in the show Industry, but, in Joker: Folie à Deux, his performance feels disjointed and out of place.
The same can’t be said for Leigh Gill, who reprises his role as Arthur’s former co-worker Gary Puddles from Joker. It is a testament to the strength of Gill’s acting that his performance, restricted to a single scene in Joker: Folie à Deux, is the film’s most impressive piece of acting, even overshadowing the best of the acting heavyweights that are Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. Gill is responsible for one of the movie’s most gut-wrenching moments and really takes your breath away with a brief, yet powerful performance worthy of attention.
That’s not to say Joaquin Phoenix isn’t excellent in the film, because he most certainly is. As the film progresses, Phoenix produces a louder, more over-the-top version of the character, which is consistent with the film’s exploration of the dueling Joker and Arthur personalities. But it is in the quiet, more solemn moments that Phoenix most thrives. The actor, who won an Academy Award for playing Arthur Fleck in the last movie, paints a beautifully realistic and devastating portrayal of the torment of mental illness and unresolved trauma. A moment in the courtroom in particular, which provides added context to a key element of the first film and the relationship between Arthur and his mother, hits so hard and arguably puts Phoenix in the conversation again for an Oscar nomination for this scene alone. No matter how misguided the movie’s messaging may be, it is consistently elevated to an entirely other level of quality due to the sheer brilliance of Joaquin Phoenix’s performance.
Lady Gaga, meanwhile, similarly excels as Phoenix’s counterpart, although in a more limited role than one might expect. Gaga’s version of Harley Quinn borrows from the numerous individuals with hybristophilia (an attraction to those who commit crimes), like the various women who professed their love for real life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. This makes for some interesting material to play with for Folie à Deux, but, indicative of much of the movie, the quality of ideas is unmatched by their execution. Gaga’s character plays an integral role in the aforementioned examination of the duality of Arthur and Joker, especially in the question of whether the two are separate personalities and which personality is the authentic one. In this sense, Gaga’s role in the film deteriorates in tandem with the conclusion of the film, which provides a confused and muddled answer to this question of duality. Nonetheless, Gaga does excellently with the material she is given and produces a refreshingly different version of Harley Quinn than those brought to life by Margot Robbie and Tara Strong.
The strong performances in Joker: Folie à Deux are situated within an extremely well crafted film. Folie à Deux is a stunning achievement of musical score, sound design, production design, cinematography, and musical choreography, with Todd Phillips and company delivering above-and-beyond in every technical department. The craft is so abundantly apparent that it makes it harder to lodge complaints, although there are still many to be had until the film’s very end.
The film concludes on a note that will inevitably elicit divisive reactions from audience members. In the grand scheme of the two films, the ending didn’t work for us. The conclusion not only feels narratively unjustified, but it dampens the legacy of Arthur Fleck as a person in this world and as an iconic character in ours.
The concluding minutes of Joker: Folie à Deux also feature two unexpected tie-ins to Batman lore. The first of these tie-ins is easily predictable based on events from earlier on and seemingly has no purpose to exist in the movie, especially given these Joker movies represent a contained story and not pieces in a larger cinematic universe. Nonetheless, it is a fun wink to the audience. Meanwhile, the second of these tie-ins, while well executed from a directing and acting standpoint, negatively affects the legacy of Arthur Fleck, as mentioned, in a plot point that mirrors that of the DC television series Gotham. Unlike the first film, in which ties to the Wayne family were integrated so well, Folie à Deux incorporates elements of the Batman mythology less seamlessly.
VERDICT: 6/10
Joker: Folie à Deux makes it hard to put on a happy face as the movie is a disappointing follow-up to the critical and financial juggernaut that was Joker. Despite bolstering strong performances, especially from star Joaquin Phoenix and scene-stealer Leigh Gill, Todd Phillips’ sequel is marred by repetitive and overly long musical sequences that add little to the film beyond commendable choreography. Surrounding these musical sequences is a run-of-the-mill courtroom drama featuring a miscast Harvey Dent that fails to captivate. More than anything though, the Joker sequel errs in its convoluted and muddled exploration of duality, in particular if Arthur and Joker are two distinct personalities and if Arthur genuinely is the trailblazing political disruptor that is Joker. The answers to these questions frustrate as much as they underwhelm and mean the film lacks the powerful, yet simple, themes and messaging of its predecessor. Missed opportunities to capitalize on the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-esque Arkham setting and strange, albeit fun and unexpected, links to Batman lore make for a viewing experience all the more underwhelming. Like Jaws 2 or The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Joker: Folie à Deux is a sequel to an iconic film that fails to come close to the excellence of its predecessor and, more damningly, does not justify its existence.