October 2, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Todd Phillips
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1983, in the fictional U.S. city Gotham City, the musical film “Joker: Folie à Deux” (a sequel to 2019’s “Joker” and based on DC Comics) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Two years after the events depicted in “Joker,” Arthur Fleck goes on trial for murdering five people, and he meets and falls in love with Lee Quinzel, an anarchist who is a resident at the same lockdown psychiatric facility.
Culture Audience: “Joker: Folie à Deux” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga; the 2019 “Joker” film; movies based on comic-book characters; and unconventional musicals.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” is a stylish, uneven, and fairly provocative musical that takes bold risks that don’t always work but the lead performances are top-notch. The movie is a dark fairy tale about obsession, celebrity fame and criminal justice. Fans of the 2019 movie “Joker” will have strong opinions on whether or not this sequel should have been a musical. However, if the movie’s purpose was to take viewers further down the rabbit hole of the title character’s mental illness and emotional fragility, by having large sections of the movie devoted to fantasy-like musical sequences, then “Joker: Folie à Deux” succeeds in that purpose. (“Folie à deux” means “madness for two” in French.)
Directed by Todd Phillips, “Joker: Folie à Deux” was co-written by Phillips and Scott Silver, who had the same creative duties for “Joker.” “Joker: Folie à Deux” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. “Joker” was a bit of phenomenon, in terms of movies based on comic-book characters. It received widespread accolades, including 11 Oscar nominations (ultimately winning two Oscars) and the Golden Lion (top prize) at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. It was also the first movie with an adult-recommended age-restriction rating to gross more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The movie was also controversial, with many critics saying that the movie glorified Arthur/Joker’s murder spree.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” takes place in 1983, two years after the events of “Joker,” in the fictional Gotham City, which is DC Comics’ version of New York City. (“Joker: Folie à Deux” was actually filmed mostly in New Jersey.) In the beginning of “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix), the mentally ill loner with the alter ego Joker, is a resident of Arkham State Hospital, a psychiatric facility for people who have been convicted or are facing charges in the criminal justice system.
Before he was arrested in “Joker,” Arthur was an aspiring stand-up comedian who had a day job working as a clown. Arthur is going on trial for murdering five people in a multiple-day rampage, which culminated with Arthur going on a live TV talk show hosted by Murray Franklin (played by Robert De Niro) and shooting Murray to death in front of a studio audience and in front of everyone watching the show on TV. The end of “Joker” showed that immediately following this horrific crime, Arthur became a folk hero of sorts to people who feel exploited, abused or ignored by society.
Phoenix, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for “Joker,” portrays this character not as the evil egomaniac that has been the persona of previous depictions of the Joker. Instead, Phoenix’s Joker is a survivor of child abuse who feels beaten down by life and is often powerless to control his urges because he is mentally ill. Arthur Fleck is also not a criminal mastermind who leads a gang and wants to take over the world, as has been the portrayal of Joker in DC Comics and in other movies and TV shows.
In “Joker,” Arthur was looking for respect. In “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Arthur is looking for true love. He thinks he’s found it when he meets Lee Quinzel (played by Lady Gaga), who lives in another ward at Arkham. (Lee’s alter ego is supposed to be Harley Quinn, but the name Harley Quinn is never said in “Joker: Folie à Deux.”) Arthur and Lee first see each other when Arthur is being escorted by prison guards down a hallway. The prison guard who interacts with Arthur the most is a bully named Jackie Sullivan (played by Brendan Gleeson), who likes to taunt Arthur and has resentment over Arthur’s fame.
When Arthur first see Lee, she is in the B Ward, a minimum security wing on Arkham, where there is a group of Arkham residents in a singing class. They are all singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Arthur and Lee lock eyes in the way that people in movies do when you know they’re going to fall in love. Because he has good behavior, Arthur is sent to the singing class, where the classmates are told that music and singing are part of their therapy. Arthur and Lee get to know each other. And it doesn’t take long for Lee to tell him her life story and show that she’s been infatuated with Arthur, even since she saw him kill Murray Franklin.
In a private conversation, Lee confesses to Arthur that when she watched him on Murray Franklin’s show, she thought to herself that she wished Arthur would blow Murray Franklin’s brains out. And when Arthur did just that, she didn’t feel alone in the world anymore. Lee also says that she’s in Arkham because she was involuntarily committed after burning down her parents’ apartment building. She also says that her biological father abused her and died in a car accident.
A TV-movie was made about Arthur, which further adds to his notoriety. This fame has attracted many disturbed people who consider Joker to be their idol. Lee admits up front that she is one of those fans. She tells Arthur that she’s willing to devote herself to him and convinces him that when his legal troubles are all over, they can make a life together.
Lee and Arthur then have the closest thing that you could call a romance between two very emotionally damaged people. Arthur’s defense attorney Maryanne Stewart (played by Catherne Keener), who wants Arthur to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, is very suspicious of Lee and tells Arthur that Lee is playing Arthur for a fool. It’s too late because Arthur has fallen deeply in love with Lee, who has convinced Arthur that they are like two sides of the same coin.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” ends up showing what happens during the trial, which doesn’t end entirely like many people would expect. The musical numbers in the movie are presented as fantasies in the mind of Arthur. The filmmakers of “Joker: Folie à Deux” wisely chose classic tunes to be the songs in these musical sequences, including “Get Happy,” “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” “For Once in My Life,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “”When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You),” “Bewitched,” “To Love Somebody,” “”(They Long To Be) Close To You,” and “Gonna Build a Mountain,” “That’s Life” and “True Love Will Find You in the End.”
The cinematography, costume design, makeup and production design all make “Joker: Folie à Deux” a visual feast. Phoenix and Lady Gaga also bring depth to their performances in their dialogue and musical numbers. “Joker: Folie à Deux” has more empathy to crime victims than “Joker” did and makes Arthur face the damage he did in his murderous rampage. The final scene in “Joker: Folie à Deux” continues what was foreshadowed about how more than one person can take on the Joker persona. (There are no mid-credits or end-credits in “Joker: Folie à Deux.”)
Phoenix and Lady Gaga capably handle the movie’s drama and the musical sequences. Are they convincing as a couple that will stay together? Of course not. Everything about the relationship between Arthur and Lee screams “doomed.” However, in the time they do spend together, Lee and Arthur have a dynamic that is different from other narratives about Joker, where Joker was the master manipulator, and Harley was the more vulnerable one in the couple. Viewers of “Joker: Folie à Deux” will either like or dislike this change.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” has some questionable choices in how it chooses to depict certain issues. Queerness and homophobia while incarcerated are given very short recognition when a socially awkward inmate in his 20s named Ricky Meline (played by Jacob Lofland) approaches Arthur in the prison yard and asks Arthur to kiss him because Ricky has never been kissed, and the prison guards told Ricky that Arthur would be willing to kiss him. In full view of other people, Arthur gives Ricky a platonic peck on the lips. But for the rest of the time that Ricky is on screen, he’s an obvious target because he’s now been branded as possibly queer.
The movie is also inconsistent in what it come the violence it chooses to show and not show. There’s a police brutality scene where someone dies, but that death is never shown on camera. Meanwhile, Arthur’s homicidal tendencies are on full display, such as when he has a fantasy about murdering his trial judge Herman Rothwax (played by Bill Smitrovich) by bludgeoning the judge to death. That murder is shown in sickening detail.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” doesn’t do much with the psychiatrist characters in the film. Dr. Louise Beatty (played by June Carryl) is Arthur’s psychiatrist while he’s incarcerated. She asks him basic and generic questions about his childhood. During the trial, two psychiatrists who evaluated Arthur in the past are among the witnesses who testify. Dr. Victor Liu (played by Ken Leung) gets criticism from the defense for making an evaluation of Arthur based on an 89-minute interview.
Some of the characters from “Joker” return as trial witnesses in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” such as social worker Debra Kane (played by Sharon Washington); Arthur’s former co-worker Gary Puddles (played by Leigh Gill); and Sophie Dumond (played by Zazie Beetz), Arthur’s former neighbor who was the object of his obsessive crush. New to “Joker: Folie à Deux” are the characters of assistant district attorney Harvey Dent (played by Harrry Lawtey); TV reporter Paddy Myers (played by Steve Coogan), who interviews Arthur in his Arkam cell before the trial; and an unnamed young Arkham resident (played by Connor Storrie), who seems to have an interest in Arthur, based on the way this young man stares at Arthur.
Where the “Joker: Folie à Deux” stumbles the most is in the editing and pacing of this 139-minute movie. Some of the musical sequences begin and end abruptly, while others flow smoothly with the rest of the story. A few sections of the movie also drag with monotony. “Joker: Folie à Deux” is unlikely to get the widespread accolades that “Joker” did because it’s generally tough for a sequel to surpass a highly acclaimed original movie. But for anyone who doesn’t mind watching musicals, “Joker: Folie à Deux” is a unique experience that can hold most viewers’ interest in seeing how this compelling story is going to end.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Joker: Folie à Deux” in U.S. cinemas on October 4, 2024.
