“Why so serious?” The Joker’s oft-quoted question from the 2008 flick The Dark Knight has come back to haunt him. After stripping back the world of superheroes in Batman Begins and making them dark, one can say Joker ruined comic book movies for ever. They’ve simply been caught in a fatal head-on collision between studios’ desire to print money with IP re-runs and the self-seriousness that now defines them. Joker: Folie à Deux marks the latest entry in the cinematic laundry load caught in the rinse cycle. If the Joker of The Dark Knight was dead serious, this Joker is fatally solemn. This is the generation of comic book movies that forgot to have fun.
There’s no worse example of Hollywood’s insistence on being its own cancerous ouroboros than the Joker movies. After the utterly joyless 2019 Joker reboot/origin story somehow grossed a billion dollars, won the Golden Lion (insert Comic Boy Guy quipping “Worst Golden Lion winner ever! ”), and scored Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor Oscar that surely gave Rami Malek a sigh of relief, the Joker is back to wreak havoc. Joker: Folie à Deux practically leaves one screaming at the screen for Phoenix and company to crack a smile. And it’s too bad, because this film actually has a handful of genuinely inspired moments. But they ultimately accentuate what an overwrought bore the rest of it is.
Folie à Deux basically offers My Cousin Vinny sans jokes as Joker stands trial for his crimes. Joker, aka Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), spends his days moping in Arkham Asylum. While being led through the halls in shackles, he locks eyes with Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) as she participates in a singing class. There’s a magnetic spark that sets Lee apart from all the fangirls and fanboys throwing their panties at Joker. She looks him straight in the eyes, pantomimes putting a gun to her head, and pulls the trigger. It’s love at first sight.
Lady Gaga is to Folie à Deux what Marisa Tomei is to My Cousin Vinny . She’s a vivacious spark who turns heads and commands attention in the courtroom. She elevates the material best she can, but unlike Tomei, the film can’t build upon her strengths.
Lee lands in the spotlight after Arthur’s dutiful guard (Brendan Gleeson) implausibly enlists Arthur in her singing class. Yes, the violent inmate gets a break from maximum security to fraternize with unstable people with varying degrees of violent behaviour. Googling “mental illness” is about the level of care in this screenplay.
Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver make Arthur’s mental competency the focus here, too, as Joker relishes his day in court. Folie à Deux awkwardly reveals itself to be a jukebox musical as Arthur and Lee sing. Musical numbers offer moments of escapist fantasy, but also interludes that explore the idea of dual personalities that run throughout the trial.
The experts deem Arthur fit for court, but his attorney (Catherine Keener) smartly tries to plead insanity. It’s hard to make a “not guilty” case when the last film ended with Arthur blowing out the brains of a TV host (Robert De Niro) on air. She argues that Arthur Fleck and The Joker are different men. This strategy inevitably has serious—why so serious?—implications for Arthur.
As the tabloids call Arthur’s case “the trial of the century,” the incel army that rallied behind Joker in the first film returns. They make a circus out of the courthouse. Donning make-up and whacky suits, Joker is their messiah. He’s a martyr for sad and lonely men who still live with their parents.
Suggesting that Arthur and Joker are mutually exclusive people also irks the crowd’s hero. As Arthur takes the stage and sings a cat-strangler number “The Joker Is Me,” it’s clear that he finds agency in his two-in-one persona. Lee also fetishizes the idea of Arthur as Joker, so conceding that there is no Joker risks alienating the one girlfriend he’s finally landed.
The musical numbers range from novel to disastrous as Phillips fumbles the sociopathic escapism. As Arthur and Lee sing duets like “What the World Needs Now,” “That’s Entertainment,” and “That’s Life,” the film offers nothing really new with its consideration of the desire for celebrity, fixation on 15 minutes of fame, which seemingly fuels Arthur’s illness. The first Joker already exposed Arthur as little more than a poor man’s Travis Bickle. His maniacal laugh now just seems forced, fake, and pathetic.
Lee, on the other hand, proves a genuinely frightening powder keg. The film is further proof that Hollywood’s fixation on Joker over Harley Quinn is a missed opportunity. She’s as larger than life as Joker, but has the pathos for a fuller, richer character. Lady Gaga gives a completely original take after Margot Robbie’s recent spin in Birds of Prey .
Lady Gaga embellishes the part with gusto as Lee becomes an unhinged Broadway melody in her fantasies with Arthur. But where Folie à Deux stunts Arthur by making him a one-dimensional angry-young-man, it gives Lee a unique spin by casting Joker’s sidekick as a product of her own making. Lee is clinically sane here, and Gaga takes every opportunity to playing with the layers of darkness. There’s a fascinating juxtaposition here between people who choose to be evil and people who are too ill to choose otherwise.
Unfortunately, that juxtaposition gets overwhelmed by the contrast in musical abilities. Phoenix, simply put, is no Lady Gaga. He may as well be auditioning for the next Mamma Mia film with those vocals. He doesn’t do himself any favours performing opposite one of the best singers on the planet, either. Phoenix is too serious here, forgetting that movie musicals should, on some level, be fun. This Joker needs to lighten up.
His scratchy voice and apathetic inhabitation of the songs also undermines this notion of Joker’s mass appeal. Even in his own fantasies, Arthur is an unfunny schmuck who can’t carry a tune in clumsy numbers. Moreover, Folie à Deux , like its predecessor, can’t articulate what everyone in Gotham sees in Joker. The success of the first Joker encourages Phillips to cosplay as renegade auteur. However, the metteur-en-scène ensures that Folie à Deux also lacks the depth or, frankly, interest to say anything meaningful despite its cavalcade of “We LivE in A sOciEtY” musings.
When the film’s inevitable bloodbath leads Joker out into the streets with his admirers, one can’t help but feel sorry for everyone who donned make-up and a funny suit to fill the room and sit through this mess. Joker’s poisonous rallying cry for the incel rebellion ends with a sad, impotent whimper.
