From the jump I’m going to say that Joker: Folie à Deux is both a little better than most people say, while somehow being worse in a lot of ways for which I wasn’t prepared.
But, and this might be a hot take, so I guess you can take my opinion with a bucket of salt… I didn’t think the first Joker was very good either. Co-writer and director Todd “I made three Hangover movies” Phillips’s 2019 Joker movie just felt like he was a big fan of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy and also had the rights to play around with a comic book character.
In fact, ever since the press tour from the original into the filming and press tour of Joker 2: Electric Boogaloo, Phillips has seemed to despise comic books, superheroes, and quite possibly even the character of Joker himself. Because, to me, it doesn’t even seem like Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is the Joker. I think Fleck is a very interesting character and that Phoenix plays him beautifully. But Phillips and Phoenix don’t seem remotely interested in engaging with the character on anything other than the terms set in the original.
Which, in theory, is fine, but the entire plot of Joker: Folie à Deux is Arthur in prison for what he did in the first film and then going to court over those actions as well. Zazie Beetz returns as Sophie, Arthur’s former neighbor who he spent the entire first movie in an imaginary relationship with, only realizing his error at the end before going to prison.
So, Sophie shows up in the sequel to testify against Arthur… and just repeats all the things we saw already the last time. In fact, Joker: Folie à Deux spends almost its entire runtime interrogating Arthur’s actions from the original, which is about the least interesting thing for a filmmaker to possibly focus on in a sequel — especially one that, somehow, cost $200 million to make with barely a set piece in sight. Someone needs to look at receipts.
Millions and millions of people saw Joker. It made more than $1 billion. To spend an entire 140-minute sequel going over the events of the original seems like either next-level trolling or a filmmaker genuinely struggling internally to find anything of worth to say. The addition of Joker: Folie à Deux being a jukebox musical is a nice idea and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn is inspired casting. But as a thematic touchstone to Arthur’s possible mental illness it feels like a thin thread that never unspools into anything emotionally resonant.
And there goes that disdain again. Gaga’s Harley Quinn is only ever called “Lee” in the film, which, again, that’s cool. It makes sense not to want the character compared too much to Margot Robbie’s iconic take on the anti-hero, but Lee never feels like Harley. The first time we meet her in Folie à Deux she’s already obsessed with and in love with Arthur, and because he’s such a lonely incel edgelord, he’s immediately smitten as well — meaning we don’t watch Lee and Arthur fall for each other. They’re in love because the script says they are, so their relationship carries no dramatic weight, no tension, no passion, no chemistry… only the machinations of a plot so thin it hangs together like a threadbare rug in a violent storm.
Phillips composes a few nice shots and the cinematography from Lawrence Sher is handsome and muscular. Phoenix is amazing, as always, and Gaga brings a side to Harley (excuse me, “Lee”) that we’ve never seen before. Some of the musical numbers are also pretty fun to see. That’s about all, though. I don’t want to really get into spoilers, but the actual story of Joker: Folie à Deux is one that probably reads well on paper, but Phillips has absolutely no idea how to approach the material with drama, intensity, or even an internal logic that makes the film coherent.
Arthur is not a protagonist or an antagonist. Everything that happens to him in Joker: Folie à Deux is a direct response to his actions in Joker. He doesn’t really do anything in this movie at all. He doesn’t drive the story. He’s not intelligent or trying to outthink the characters around him that wish him harm. He walks into a scene, things happen, he reacts to them, and then the scene is over. He has no agency and little to no imagination other than a possible mental illness the film shows as musical hallucinations. Perhaps Phillips is too afraid to really connect with what this means on a realistic and empathetic level.
Arthur Fleck is a paper-thin character sketch idea that Philips had when he watched Taxi Driver for the fiftieth time. He was incredibly lucky to find a once-in-a-generation genius on the level of Phoenix to make Arthur seem like he has more depth than he actually does.
There are a few moments where you can see what a good movie Joker: Folie à Deux might have been if Phillips had any interest in actually making it. He didn’t want to. He never did. DC Comics backed a truckload of money up to him and he sighed and said “what if we just make it a musical?” In his flop-sweated desperation to be a “serious” director, he made one of the biggest mistakes a writer can make about his subject. He didn’t take it seriously.
By the end of the movie I couldn’t even tell if Phillips liked Arthur or whether he even thought Arthur was the Joker at all or just some sick, sad, lonely abused man-child that feels power for the first time when he finds a loaded gun. Arthur Fleck isn’t the Joker. He’s barely Kyle Rittenhouse.
I’m no fan of Jared Leto, but I would still rather see his weird-ass Juggalo Soundcloud rapper version of the Joker again than spend another minute in Todd Phillips’s morally bankrupt and depressing imagination. I’ll watch Joaquin Phoenix recite recipes for meatloaf for a month, but I’m not sure I ever want to spend time with his Arthur Fleck character again either. I’m done with these movies and, hopefully, you are too.
Grade: D-
