Joker: Folie à Deux - A Mad Musical, Court Procedurial, Fantasy-Filled Vision that is DEFINITELY not Canon
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B+
Let the Rotten Tomatoes record show that I am in a minority in my appreciation of Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ continuation of his reimagining of events in the DC Universe.
One summation of aggregate reviews said the movie was variously deemed as either going too far or not far enough.
Call me Goldilocks, I guess.
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) in a fantasy courtroom musical scene.
Like 2019’s Joker, Folie à Deux is a stand-alone story of a profoundly damaged person (Joaquin Phoenix) who imagines himself a potential comedy superstar, and who retaliates psychotically against a world that disagrees with his fantasy. The original kept itself many arms’ lengths away from the Gotham of Batman, and served up a shock tale of a society of disenfranchised people who ultimately embrace the multi-murderer as a hero.
Strip away the DC associations, and Joker was Phillips’ version of Taxi Driver, an existential “message movie” about a decaying urban society where the divide between the haves and have-nots was due to crack open somehow.
How do you follow up the events in that movie? Folie à Deux is many things, a deranged romance that pauses regularly to indulge itself as a full-out movie musical, a court procedural, a violent mental hospital/prison drama. It is definitely not the origin story of a genius supervillain and his equally psychotic girlfriend.
And there lies the rub. When word came out that Lady Gaga was going to play the Joker’s moll Harley Quinn, expectations were high that Phillips’ Joker was going to become more of what superhero fans expected of it, with all the cartoon violence and candy coloured pastels Margot Robbie gamely worked with in two movies.
Instead, Folie à Deux adopts a new “message,” about celebrity and identity, and what separation exists between the object of public worship and self.
It does this cheekily from the get-go, by opening with a Joker cartoon that is an homage to Warner Bros.’ old-time Merrie Melodies. It’s a “me and my shadow” short, in which Joker is in a dressing room, preparing to meet his public, when his shadow begins to act independently and violently, forcing a wordless fight between the two over who is the star of the show. Eventually, there is a police beating.
And that’s when we return to the non-animated world and re-meet Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), now an emaciated, drugged and docile “patient” of Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, whose only pleasure is snagging a cigarette from the guards in exchange for a joke.
Outside the walls, Joker is a psycho Elvis. A TV movie has already been aired about him, a guard asks him to autograph a copy of a book about one of Joker’s victims, talk show host Murray Franklin (referred to more than once as, “the one you killed on national TV”), and crowds and media continue to crowd around Arkham, in hopes of seeing him in the yard, or even getting a response.
As his court date nears, Arthur meets a fan, fellow patient Harley “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who is ostensibly being treated for pyromania, but is inexplicably given access to cigarettes and matches (note: EVERYBODY smokes in this movie). Their love is soon trothed by musical/dance sequences of famous love songs.
Soon, she is out, and in the courtroom visitors benches as the movie switches gears between the court and the asylum. There, Arthur soon fires his court-appointed lawyer (Catherine Keener) and is granted the right to defend himself, as Joker in full makeup – giving the jury a front row seat to the struggle between Arthur and his nihilistic celebrity shadow.
(Of the supporting players, the standout is Brendan Gleeson, as the one Arkham guard who treats Arthur with something like kindness. His role is instructive as to how those who hold power on you can turn on a dime from benevolent to brute).
Phillips leans heavily on fantasy scenes, many of them matching the violence in the first movie, despite the fact that they take place completely in Arthur’s head.
And, between the fantasies and musical numbers, the guy who directed the Hangover trilogy still has his sense of humour, which is appreciated by me, if not by everyone.
Example: While worrying whether he’s being “played” by Lee, Arthur conjures up a ‘70s-style Sonny & Cher-type variety show, where they sing “To Love Somebody,” with a violent denouement.
I would actually listen to the soundtrack to this movie. Gaga fans will be disappointed to hear her pull back her voice to match that of a chain-smoking mental patient (though her range still comes through). And Phoenix’s already gravelly/close-enough voice actually works with the right song. When he implores Lee with a rendition of If You Go Away, he sounds like he’s channeling his erstwhile screen role of Johnny Cash.
To repeat, Folie à Deux is not “canon.” It’s a writer/director realizing a vision with something sincere and clever, which you can accept or reject. Superhero fans will get their fix soon enough. But this is not that.
Joker: Folie à Deux. Directed and co-written by Todd Phillips. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga and Brendan Gleeson. In theatres October 4.