Joker Folie à Deux positions itself as a musical; a seemingly leftfield switch after the Oscar-nominated first film that drew so much from Martin Scorsese it might have been a parody of Taxi Driver. Yet the man with no original ideas is back – Todd Phillips instead lifts liberally from sources like The Shawshank Redemption and the filmography of Jacques Demy to tell the story of Joker post the death of talk show host Murray Franklin, something that the whole world saw televised. Since then, there has been a tv movie made about Joker’s crimes in Gotham – and he’s on course for the trial of the century – something that was the original plan for The Dark Knight Rises had Heath Ledger not sadly passed; more of the Joker – a courtroom drama, yes, but also a musical with Lady Gaga, because why not? And a love story too – the film tackles so many threads it can’t really tie them all together.
The dual identity of Fleck/Joker is explored in a way that came together at the end of the first film as we bring the characters from the previous movie back on stage and on trial to examine how their lives were affected by Fleck’s descent into madness. Zazie Beetz’ Sophie Dummond tells the story of Fleck’s mind, the lies he was told by his mother, that slowly became his whole personality in a way that she didn’t expect. The courtroom knows that he only killed five people – they don’t know that they killed his mother, too. Returning to play Gary Puddles is Leigh Gill – who delivers a harrowing performance as someone who is hunted in fear, who can barely set outside without being afraid. Both Sophie and Puddles have had their lives changed forever – and are put under the spotlight by Harry Lawtey’s charismatic, ruthless Harvey Dent – who wants the death penalty for Fleck.
The gothic cinematography that haunts Gotham and Arkham Asylum is captured from the very essence of the first film. It looks seedy, unhospitable, unwelcoming – the common run theme of good Batman comics is that they make the city feel like a character in its own right – but that’s something that Folie à Deux struggles with. The city feels like it’s on the verge of a tipping point but with the action in the courtroom or Arkham for much of the film; it never feels lived in or alive. The running theme of the fans is that Folie à Deux cast aside the legacy of the first film and betrayed it. That would imply that the first film had any legacy to stand on whatsoever, a cheap copycat – much like this rushed, hackneyed drama.
Much has been made of the ‘subversion’ of the twist where Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn – or her Lee – is the dominant figure in the Harley/Joker relationship, but there’s no drama here at all. Music is used as a tool for the characters to show who has the upper hand at what particular point and a way for the Joker and Lee to express their relationship, but nothing quite lands here – it can’t fully commit either way. It’s half-heartedly a musical because it also has to be a courtroom drama. It can’t be a courtroom drama because it has to spend time on developing the Joker/Lee and their relationship. It can’t be a romance movie because it needs to be a movie about the Joker. And it can’t be a movie about the Joker because it needs to be a courtroom movie. And so on and so forth – the circle repeats itself. There is one too many examples of too much and not enough of anything – the best part of this movie is the agency that Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn has, but Lee isn’t in this movie as much as you would hope. For a movie marketed around a Joker movie with Gaga, at least give her more of a prominent role.
Joaquin Phoenix too, feels like he’s a misguided, weak character here. He’s not a bad actor and that has been proven time and time again but he can’t make anything about Fleck convincingly believable; in fact this might just be his worst performance to date. The performance comes as odd while everyone around him is half-assed, barely caring – tonally disjointed from the rest of the film. Phoenix is awkward and out of key, and everything at the ending just feels incredibly fake. It feels like a copout. It feels like Todd Phillips is trying to have his cake and eat it too – connect to too many dots in the DC canon for a movie that’s supposedly above comic book nonsense when its ending felt like the most comic book nonsense thing to possibly do.
Much has been labelled Folie à Deux as a movie that is purposely trying to destroy its own ambitions, deliberately tank the film in the same way that The Matrix Resurrections was supposedly, trying to do – so that WB would never get the creators to make another movie for them again. Yet that would imply Phillips is some kind of creative mastermind and not a hack – and this movie wishes it was anywhere near as half as clever, brave, bold, daring or as brilliant as The Matrix Resurrections.
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