Joker: Folie a Deux
Like its predecessor, this sequel works best if you think of it as a continuation of the standalone story of Arthur Fleck, rather than a new version of the comic-book character ‘the Joker’. Although it may (intentionally) alienate certain fans of the first film, this courtroom drama with fantasy musical elements still has some very interesting things to say.
Premise: Following his murder of talk-show host Murray Franklin live on air, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is held in Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial. There he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a minimum-security patient who’s infatuated with Arthur’s ‘Joker’ persona.
Review:
To address the elephant in the room first, I thought 2019’s Joker was a great film ... provided that you don’t think of it as being a film about the comic-book character known as ‘the Joker’. It’s unquestionably the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), and in my view, at no point during the 2019 film does Arthur become the comic-book character known as ‘the Joker’. Watched on that basis, Joker was a gripping character-driven psychological-thriller in the vein of Taxi Driver or Nightcrawler, free to do its own thing in its separate “parallel universe” where it didn’t have to worry about the established Batman continuity.
Because of this, I was very worried when they (perhaps inevitably, given how much money Joker made) announced that they were making a sequel, because I was worried that they would try to morph the character of Arthur Fleck into the more recognisable “Clown Prince of Crime” version of the Joker from the comic-books. To me, such a transformation would make no sense at all, and contradict everything that we learned about Arthur Fleck in the first film.
“…definitely isn’t a depiction of the origins of the ‘Joker’ character from the comics…”
Thankfully, it seems that director/co-writer Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix felt the same way, because Joker: Folie à Deux is very much a continuation of Arthur Fleck’s story, and it definitely isn’t a depiction of the origins of the ‘Joker’ character seen in the comics and other movies.
Interestingly, the film seems to intentionally distance itself from those sections of real-life society that, after the first film came out, sought to hold Arthur Fleck up as some sort of “antihero”. I never blamed the film or the filmmakers for the way in which certain corners of toxic fandom and the “incel” community reacted to the first film, because I felt that the first film always made it clear that audiences were meant to react with revulsion to Arthur’s actions, despite having sympathy for the character’s underlying mental health struggles and years of abuse. It you reacted to Arthur’s actions in the first film with anything other than horror, that says more about you than it does about the filmmakers.
“…explores the media frenzy around famous mass murderers…”
But in Folie a Deux, the filmmakers have doubled-down on making it abundantly clear that audiences are not meant to see Arthur as some sort of poster-boy for the disaffected. The sequel dials back on the social commentary elements from the first film to remove any perception that Joker’s “fans” have a legitimate political ideology – they are no longer protesting in support of social justice and equality, and instead are merely “groupie” fans of a mass-murderer onto whom they project their own meaning and purpose.
In fact, one of the main themes in this sequel is the media frenzy that can arise around the persona projected by (or onto) famous mass murderers, which in real-life situations can lead to monsters on death row becoming minor celebrities or receiving marriage proposals. In this sequel, these themes are explored in plot strands involving Arthur’s lawyer (played earnestly by Catherine Keener), the media (Steve Coogan appears as TV personality who secures a high-profile interview with Arthur), the nameless “fans” of the Joker, and Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga).
“…Arthur & Lee are both living in their own shared delusion…”
Just as Arthur Fleck is not the comic-book ‘Joker’, Lee Quinzel is not the comic-book ‘Harley Quinn’ – instead, Lady Gaga plays her as a character that’s very difficult to read ... is she an obsessed groupie, a manipulative self-publicist, a hopeless romantic, or some mixture of all three? The name of the film, Folie a Deux, refers to a shared delusion (translating as “madness for two”), and in this film, it’s clear that Arthur and Lee are both living (at least to some extent) in their own shared delusion. But it’s also clear that on some level, Lee personifies all those who (in real-life) misinterpreted the morality of the first film; for example, in an early scene she admits to Arthur that when she watched his appearance on the Murray Franklin talk-show at the end of the first film, she wanted him to murder the host.
Another central question that the film asks is the same one I asked when watching the first film, and that’s ‘is Arthur Fleck the Joker’? In the context of the movie, which for a large part is essentially a courtroom drama, the prosecution argue that it was Arthur Fleck who committed the murders and who should receive the death penalty, while his lawyers argue that he suffers from a dissociative personality disorder caused by years of abuse, and it was the dissociative personality known as ‘the Joker’ who committed the murders.
“…never loses sight of the human cost of Arthur’s actions…”
The meta-question of whether Arthur Fleck is ‘the Joker’ therefore becomes one of the main themes of the film, but interestingly, the filmmakers seem acutely aware (after the reception of the first film by some corners of the internet) of the risk of turning Arthur Fleck into an unintentional “antihero”. With that in mind, the filmmakers never lose sight of the human cost of Arthur’s actions in the first film, and two of the sequel’s most powerful scenes involve survivors from the first film, played by Zazie Beetz and Leigh Gill, talking about how they still carry the trauma from the events of the first film with them.
The cast is universally great in Folie a Deux, with Brendan Gleeson and Harry Lawtey rounding out the main cast as a bullying guard at Arkham and the Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent, respectively. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance here is just as multilayered as in the first film, and walks the fine line between portraying Arthur as a tragic figure and a sociopath incapable of empathy, while Lady Gaga manages to keep her character suitably enigmatic and undefinable throughout.
“…deliberately subverts the expectations of those who misunderstood the first film…”
But ultimately, this is not a film that will appeal to everyone, because as good as the performances are, and as thought-provoking as some of the themes are, it can be a little self-indulgent at times. This is most obvious in terms of the musical elements – you can split hairs over whether or not Folie a Deux is technically a “musical”, but it does have a large number of delusional hallucinations, fantasies and dream sequences where Arthur and/or Lee burst into song. I didn’t have a problem with these musical interludes (the songs are all sung “in character”, and they work in terms of conveying the characters’ headspace in the moment), but they do have an impact on pacing in a film where you could already make the criticism that not an awful lot happens over its 2 hours and 18 minutes run time.
But for me personally, this film gave me everything that I could have asked for in a sequel to Joker. Although I didn’t originally think that the 2019 film needed a sequel, Folie a Deux avoided every mistake I was afraid it would make, and instead, it’s a sequel that actually provides closure and clarity on those threads left dangling at the end of the first film. This is the very antithesis of a “fan service” sequel – after having made a truly awful “fan service” sequel that replayed the same beats and gave fans exactly what they were expecting (The Hangover Part II), Todd Phillips here deliberately subverts the expectations of those who misunderstood the first film and idolised a mass murderer. The ambition behind Folie a Deux is more than enough to forgive a few of the wilder swings that it takes in terms of things like the musical elements, and ultimately, I love that this sequel makes the filmmakers’ intentions abundantly clear, and ensures that Arthur Fleck (and all those like him) are seen for what they truly are, no more and no less.
