Review of Joker: Folie à Deux: a strangely timid musical sequel

How strange to remember the collective anxiety, the sheer unease that greeted the theatrical release of Joker barely five years ago. Were we ever so nervous that a dark supervillain origin story from the director of THE Hangover movies could he radicalize anyone? This surprisingly derivative Elsewhere worlds the prequel did not, in fact, inspire any copycat killings, even if its vision of a misfit thriving through violence seemed to spring from the metastasizing resentments of Trump’s America. But the film grossed a billion dollars, won a few Oscars, and gave comic book cinema – then at the height of its popularity – a beautiful new wardrobe of Scorsesian gravitas and grittiness.

If it’s hard to imagine now Joker sparking an incel revolution, it’s even harder to imagine its sequel having any cultural impact. On paper, Joker: Folie à Deux It seems audacious, like a prank that Gotham City’s most infamous thug might play on his own followers: those expecting another wallow in the #damaged psychology of a Travis Bickle clown prince will instead be confronted with …a musical about his fading romance with Harley Quinn. But Todd Phillips, who returns to write and direct this dubiously necessary encore, hasn’t fully committed. Armed with a bold idea, he has somehow created something curiously timid – a genre experience unlikely to satisfy old fans or convert many new ones.

Of course, there really wasn’t any good reason, beyond the obvious financial incentive, to continue the story told in the original. Part of the novelty of Joker is that it seemed to exist beyond the franchise logic of superhero cinema in general; it told a relatively self-contained story of infamy born of illness and despair. By the end of the film, Joaquin Phoenix’s tragically misfit Arthur Fleck had completed his journey from outcast to folk hero in makeup and misdirected rage, having inspired an entire town of like-minded anarchists by taking down his former talk show idol, Murray. Franklin (Robert De Niro). With the Joker now fully formed in a padded cell, where could Phillips take the equipment?

You enter Folie à Deux perhaps expecting to see Phoenix go on a manic rampage – to see a version of Fleck closer to the heavy-handed legend of DC comics and big screen notoriety. Instead, in the film’s first major failure of imagination, it was essentially reset: Arthur, born again at the climax of Jokerhas retreated into himself under psychiatric care, his homicidal tendencies mitigated by a daily supply of pills and the mocking supervision of guards (including a brutally pleasant Brendan Gleeson). Skin once again tightened around his bony shoulders and jutting spine, Phoenix effortlessly plunges back into the role that won him an Oscar, but the performance is redundant. Instead of becoming a true Joker, he’s once again forced to play the joyless laughing wallflower.

Much of the film takes place in Arkham Asylum, which has never seemed so ordinary, so devoid of baroque personality. (If the first film constructed a Gotham elegantly modeled on New Hollywood’s New York City, no such plan is applied to the mental hospital’s cells and common areas.) He is here, awaiting trial for the murders he committed in Jokerthat Arthur meets his patient Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga) in a therapeutic music program. This allows Phillips to put his own depressive spin on Crazy loveTHE Batman: The Animated Series episode that introduced Harley’s funny farm backstory.

Gaga is inspired casting: if anyone is going to make us forget the cartoon pleasures of Margot Robbie’s iconic take on the princess of crime, it’s the devoted buffoon herself. And there’s an interesting idea about how Folie à Deux inverts the Joker/Harley dynamic, making Lee the dominant force in their love story – an anarchic groupie trying to bring the darkness out of Arthur. But audiences might come away wishing Phillips had done this for Gaga. She’s stuck with the imperative to play a more emotionally “realistic” Harley Quinn. Why hire this diva just to keep her from standing out, as an actor or singer?

An opening overhead shot of Arthur striding across the asylum grounds, flanked by colorful umbrellas—a visual reference to one of the great musicals in cinema—teases the Broadway production that will blossom in the killer’s imagination. At least, that’s the general idea once these institutionalized lovers begin to gush about their feelings and disappear into romantic daydreams. But Phillips never delivers on the promise of a song-and-dance extravaganza, a full-blown Batman musical. His tasteful caution begins with the songbook, a jukebox full of enjoyable staples from Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Louis Armstrong. It’s a cheap and easy irony: the homicidal maniac sings softly about musty oldies.

As a musical, Folie à Deux is strangely muffled. Phoenix and Gaga perform many songs in hushed tones. Is the idea that they are slow to release their inner songbirds hesitant to open their hearts? It’s Phillips who seems to be holding back. The fantastical numbers, like a soundstage duet from Sonny and Cher in Arthur’s head, stop halfway to splendor. They make the minimalist musical intrusions of Dancer in the dark look like the pinnacle of Technicolor expression. It’s as if Folie à Deux is afraid that going to the theater at full blast will compromise its air of oppressive sadness (the reigning mood of the first film), even if the songs here are supposed to do that. Strangely, the original had a more immediate musical appeal; this sequel suffers from the stupid magnificence of Arthur’s idiotic victory dance on the stairs, his psychotic boogie of jock-jams to Gary Glitter.

Folie à Deux is actually two different films, finely crafted and poorly put together. His lame aspirations for Bob Fosse glory ultimately take a back seat to his transformation into a full-blown legal drama, as Arthur is put on trial for his crimes. His lawyer, played by a pragmatic Catherine Keener, wants to advance the defense that the Joker is explicitly an alternate personality – an idea that was first floated in the curveball of an opening scene in the film, a fake drawing animated from Warner Bros. which vaguely reflects the violence of JokerThis is the climax. Folie à Deux becomes a sort of dispute of its predecessor, abstractly taking into account the discourse around this mega-hit. Alas, it’s more interesting in theory than in execution; at one point, the film devolves into a parade of cameos from the last film’s supporting characters, all popping up for a scene on the witness stand.

Like the first Joker, Folie à Deux looks and sounds great. Phillips was smart enough to assemble his dream team, including cinematographer Lawrence Sher, who once again delivers the material with more majesty than it deserves. But the director does not find anyone in the fierce fight for Arthur. And he sympathizes too much with his anti-hero to let him become a figure of danger or dark triumph again; unable to see past the tragedy of Arthur’s arc, Phillips simply reiterates it. The film’s hesitation to embrace its highly conceptual aspects, to truly Go for it as a reinvention of the genrebetrays how desperately devoted he is to the morose spirit of Joker. You could say that Arthur is imprisoned by his misery. So it is Folie à Deux.

Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in cinemas around the world. To learn more about AA Dowd’s writings, visit his Authority page.