How strange to remember the mountain anxiousness , the sheer handwringing uneasiness , that recognise the theatrical handout ofJokerjust five class ago . Were we ever so nervous to cerebrate that a grimdark supervillain origin account from the film director oftheHangovermoviesmight radicalize anyone ? This strikingly derivativeElseworldsprequel did not , in fact , inspire ape killing , however much its vision of a misfit self - actualizing through vehemence seemed to germinate from the metastasizing resentments of Trump ’s America . But the film did make a billion dollars , gain ground a yoke of Oscars , and give comic - book film — then at the apex of its popularity — a good-looking young wardrobe of Scorsesian gravity and grittiness .
If it ’s now unmanageable to imagineJokerprovoking an incel gyration , it ’s harder still to picture its sequel accept any cultural impact whatsoever . On paper , Joker : Folie à Deuxsounds bodacious , like a prank Gotham City ’s most notorious rogue might play on his own followers : Those expecting another wallow in the # damage psychology of a goof - prince Travis Bickle will rather be confronted with … a musical about his swooning romanticism withHarley Quinn . But Todd Phillips , rejoin to write and steer this dubiously necessary encore , has n’t fully committed to the bit . Armed with a daring idea , he ’s somehow made something curiously diffident — a genre experiment improbable to satisfy old fan or convert many new ones .
Of course , there was really no good reason , beyond the obvious financial inducement , to keep the story the original told . Part of the bangle ofJokerwas that it seemed to exist beyond the franchise logic of superhero picture palace at large ; it tell a comparatively ego - contained fib of infamy bear from sickness and desperation . By the destruction of the movie , Joaquin Phoenix ’s tragically maladjusted Arthur Fleck had completed his journey from pariah to makeup - break phratry hero of misdirected rage , having inspired a whole city of likeminded anarchists by shooting dead his one - time public lecture - show idol , Murray Franklin ( Robert De Niro ) . With the Joker now fully take shape in a cushioned cubicle , where else could Phillips take the textile ?
You go intoFolie à Deuxexpecting , perhaps , to see Phoenix maniacally unleash — to see a version of Fleck closer to the heavy of DC comics legend and silver filmdom ill fame . Instead , in the movie ’s first major failure of imagination , he ’s been essentially reset : Arthur , born afresh at the flood tide ofJoker , has tunneled back within himself under psychiatrical care , his homicidal tendencies muted by a daily supply of pill and the mocking superintendence of the safeguard ( let in a brutishly jocular Brendan Gleeson ) . peel once again pulled tightly around his bony shoulder and protruding spine , Phoenix sinks effortlessly back into the role that pull ahead him an Academy Award , but the public presentation is superfluous . Instead of going full Joker , he ’s stuck spiel the mirthlessly laughing Cheiranthus cheiri again .
Much of the pic is dress in Arkham Asylum , which has never looked this ordinary , this devoid of churrigueresco personality . ( If the first movie build a Gotham stylishly modeled on the New York City of New Hollywood , there ’s no such blueprint applied to the cells and common domain of the genial hospital . ) It ’s here , awaiting trial for the murders he committed inJoker , that Arthur meets fellow patient Harleen “ Lee ” Quinzel ( Lady Gaga ) in a remedial medicine program . This allows Phillips to put his own depressive twirl onMad Love , theBatman : The Animated Seriesepisode that laid out the funny - farm backstory of Harley .
Gaga is inspired casting : If anyone is going to make us forget the cartoon pleasures of Margot Robbie ’s iconic take on the besotted princess of law-breaking , it ’s the devoted fool herself . And there ’s a steer of an interesting idea in howFolie à Deuxinverts the Joker / Harley dynamic , turning Lee into the dominant force of their erotic love affaire — an anarchy groupie trying to coax the duskiness back out of Arthur . But the audience may leave wishing Phillips had done that for Gaga . She ’s hem in by the imperative to play a more emotionally “ realistic ” Harley Quinn . Why employ this prima donna only to keep her from thin open , as an thespian or singer ?
An early overhead pellet of Arthur span asylum grounds while flanked by colorful umbrellas — a ocular reference to one of thegreat projection screen musicals — teases the Broadway production that will bloom in the grampus ’s imagination . At least , that ’s the ecumenical idea once theseinstitutionalized lovers set out warble their touch sensation and vanish into wild-eyed reveries . But Phillips never pays off the hope of an overweening Song dynasty - and - dance spectacle , a full - tout Batman melodic . His refined caution begins with the songbook , a jukebox stocked with pleasant raw material from the likes of Frank Sinatra , Judy Garland , and Louis Armstrong . It ’s a cheap and easy caustic remark : the homicidal madman gently blab along to moldy golden oldie .
As a melodic , Folie à Deuxis peculiarly muted . Phoenix and Gaga perform many of the songs at a breathy near - rustle . Is the opinion that they ’re slow to uncage their inner songster , hesitating to unfold their hearts ? It ’s Phillips who seems like he ’s holding back . The fantasy numbers , like a duet on the Sonny and Cher soundstage in Arthur ’s caput , foreswear halfway to splendour . They make the minimalist melodious intrusions ofDancer in the Darklook like the height of Technicolor expression . It ’s as ifFolie à Deuxis afraid that going full theater - kid will compromise its tune of oppressive nakedness ( the reigning vibration of the first film ) , even though the songs here aresupposedto do that . Strangely , the original had a more quick musical appeal ; this subsequence aches for the slow magnificence of Arthur ’s dorky victory dance on the stairs , his psychotic jock - jam boogie to Gary Glitter .
Folie à Deuxis really a distich of different movie , thin conceived and awkwardly stitched together . Its half - assed aspiration to Bob Fosse glory finally take a backseat to its translation into a bona fide courtroom drama , as Arthur stands trial for his crimes . His lawyer , played by a no - bunk Catherine Keener , wants to run with the defence that the Joker is explicitly an alternate personality — an idea first floated in the picture ’s curveball of an opening fit , a faux Warner Bros. cartoon that mistily reflect the ferocity ofJoker ’s climax . Folie à Deuxbecomes a kind of litigation of its predecessor , abstractly reckoning with the treatment around that mega - hit . Alas , that ’s more interesting in hypothesis than executing ; at a certain stage , the moving-picture show call on into a parade of cameos by the support type of the last film , all popping up for a scene on the watcher stand .
Like the firstJoker , Folie à Deuxlooks and sounds gravid . Phillips was smart to reassemble his dream squad , including cinematographer Lawrence Sher , who again provide the cloth with more majesty than it deserve . But the manager ca n’t discover any soul in the tug - of - state of war for Arthur ’s . And he sympathizes too much with his anti - hero to let him become a digit of peril or dark victory again ; ineffectual to see past the tragedy of Arthur ’s arc , Phillips just reiterates it . The picture ’s hesitation to comprehend its high - concept aspects , to reallygo for itas a genre reinvention , betrays how hopelessly devoted it is to the morose spirit ofJoker . You could say Arthur is jug by his misery . So isFolie à Deux .
