A lot of excitement was growing for the sequel, Joker: Folie a Deux this year. Now it seems there's even more interest growing for this film due to everyone's divisive opinions on it (with most of these opinions being negative). Who's ready for more excitement?! Because my review of this sequel isn't negative!
Folie a Deux (French for "madness for two") continues the life of tortured criminal Arthur Fleck who was first introduced to audiences in the 2019 film, Joker. In this sequel, approximately one year has passed since the events of Joker with Arthur Fleck living in Arkham Asylum preparing for this upcoming murder trial. One day Arthur meets a fellow asylum patient name Harley Quinzel, and the two soon become kindred spirits sharing their destructive urges with each other and their hopes for freedom. While Harley and Arthur's love grows, his chances of acquittal from his murder charges become more futile.
Joker: Folie a Deux is a different film than I expected, because it's such a kaleidoscope of disparate genres and moods. It's a love story between Joaquin Phoenix (Beau is Afraid, 2023) and Lady Gaga's (House of Gucci, 2021) characters, it's a crime thriller with courtroom dialogue, it's a musical even with some fantasy moments of dancing under bright lights. The film even starts with a Looney Tunes animated short about the Joker fighting against his own shadow (functioning to introduce a main theme of this film). So there's a lot of motifs and ideas to cover here in the two hour 18 minute run time. Sometimes this kaleidoscope of ideas works, and sometimes it doesn't...and I'm not just directing my criticism on this at the musical moments feeling too out of place.
The inserts of singing and fantasy actually work well to give this film an even darker, more hopeless, vibe than its preceding film. All the songs are classic jazz standards (like "That's Life" first recorded in 1963 and made popular by Frank Sinatra) or are from Broadway musicals of the 1940s and 50s (like "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" from the 1940 production Pal Joey or "Get Happy" from the 1950 film, Summerstock) expressing a joyful optimism that's in a starkly tragic contrast to the title character's life. Many shots of this film show Arthur in his dreary asylum cell under the abuse of the condescending guards (so who wouldn't retreat into their own musical imagination?).
The singing from Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga is purposely unpolished and ragged, bringing a much-needed emotional realism to their respective psychological journeys. But what happens when our two lovers' psychological journeys diverge? This dark style of musical, and its unadorned style of singing, could be the start of a new trend in movie musicals that avoid sunshine altogether to tackle more challenging, gloomy characters. And the upcoming musical films, "Emilia Perez" and "The End" are expected to continue this style in 2024.
What left me feeling puzzled about this sequel was its lack of tension or anxiety. The 2019 Joker film has an effortlessly consistent mood of disquiet and suspense, like the title character is teetering on the edge of madness and violence which then envelop him at the end. Folie a Deux has some of this teetering, but it's much less than I was expecting. And even with this bit of teetering, nothing dangerous or violent ever happens (except for one event near the end).
This sequel spends so much time being introspective on Arthur Fleck's identity that it loses some of its incendiary edge that made its director, Todd Phillips (War Dogs, 2016), a more respected name in film. (Or at least one that gets an Oscar nomination.) Being so different of a film, and being so especially dark and tragic of a musical film, makes this sequel something truly unexpected and unique. So it isn't a brilliant triumph, but at least it isn't boring.
