Well, "Joker: Folie à Deux" is not the blockbuster that Warner Brothers was hoping for. And it's certainly not the film that the fans of the Joker character were hoping for either. Todd Phillips, by all accounts, was given carte blanche with the sequel to the surprisingly successful 2019 "Joker" movie, and he made a movie that will only be of interest to a very, very few. I'm honestly not sure whether or not it's a good movie, but as one of the few people who actually seems to be in the target audience for "Joker: Folie à Deux," I admit that I came away entertained. However, I completely understand why most viewers were appalled and the studio is treating this as a complete disaster.
Since the first "Joker" was an homage to the early films of Martin Scorsese, and "Joker: Folie à Deux" was rumored to be a musical, I prepped for it by rewatching "New York, New York," and Francis Ford Coppola's "One From the Heart." "Joker: Folie à Deux," despite Phillips' protestations, is definitely a musical film, but the one I find myself comparing it to is "Pennies From Heaven," the tragic Depression-era anti-musical that juxtaposes its heroes' increasingly miserable lives with elaborate fantasy musical numbers. "Joker: Folie à Deux" does something similar, taking place mostly in Arkham State Hospital, where Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) has been locked up, awaiting trial for the murders he committed in "Joker." After he connects with a fellow patient, Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), in a music class, he starts imagining himself in musical numbers set to oldies and show tunes. Yes, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse's "The Joker" is on the soundtrack.
The common criticism I've seen of "Joker: Folie à Deux" is that it's determined not to be a crowd-pleaser on any level, and I don't disagree. The movie actively undercuts the notion that Arthur Fleck is any kind of heroic figure, so the fans who saw him as a pro-anarchy icon in "Joker" get no satisfaction. Nearly all the violence in the film is directed against him, with no opportunity for reprisal. The courtroom drama is farcical and devolves into nonsense. The romance is promising, but comes up pretty half-baked. Despite the involvement of Lady Gaga, the musical numbers aren't up the standard of your typical song-and-dance picture. The raw style and Joaquin Phoenix's shaky vocals match the tone of the piece, but none if it's very memorable. Plus, there are a couple of fake-outs that seem deliberately positioned to frustrate the audience even further.
It's admirable that Todd Fields has committed to such a starkly bleak vision for this character, and used Warners' money and resources to do it, but my trouble with the film is that the execution is so lacking. While the film looks gorgeous and expensive, "Joker: Folie à Deux" is badly paced, with a second act that drags interminably. The scripting is repetitive, disjointed, and dwells on the unpleasantness. For the first hour or so, I was keeping an open mind as the love story was being set up, and the first few musical numbers were introduced. However, the movie is not good at actually being a romance or a musical, and wastes the talents of so many talented people. Lady Gaga is earnestly striving to distinguish her version of Harley Quinn, but gets little of interest to actually do. Brendan Gleeson plays a guard who is Arthur's primary tormeter in Arkham, and Catherine Keener is his lawyer - both doing their best with pretty empty roles. As for Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for playing Arthur Fleck - well, the singing and dancing is new, but the misguided romance and the mental unwinding isn't.
I'm very happy that Phillips took such a big swing with "Joker: Folie à Deux," even if it didn't turn out the way that anyone wanted. I think that he could have gone much harder on the spectacle and violence, and darker on the themes and relationships. I'm glad that there was no attempt whatsoever to make this more related to the Batman universe, but at the same time Philips has also given up on the Scorsese pastiche, which leaves his movie stylistically adrift. There are a few individual sequences that I enjoyed, and the use of old standards like "That's Entertainment!" and opening with a Sylvain Chomet animated sequence are points in its favor, but "Joker: Folie à Deux" never seems to find its footing. Even the ending feels less like a shocker than just putting the movie out of its misery.
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