In Arkham Asylum awaiting his murder trial, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) was allowed to join the music therapy class on account of his good behavior.  There, he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who was admitted for crimes of arson.  Something of a fan of Arthur’s – or, rather, a fan of the Joker – the two embark on a tentative relationship together but with Arthur sitting trial and Lee having been discharged from the facility, their relationship is threatened before it even really started.  As the reality of his situation begins to set in – the consequences of his actions and the live wire that is true love – Arthur retreats into the wilds of his imagination to help balance this wave of new emotions. 

Todd Phillips writes and directs Joker: Folie à Deux reuniting with Scott Silver for assistance on the page who also helped to pen the gritty revenge crime thriller Joker (2019).  In the same way that film paid homage to the grime house films of the ’70s and ’80s, Folie à Deux is a jukebox musical that pulls from the sweeping opulence of the Hollywood musical, filling out a soundtrack with ballroom standards, while not abandoning the gritty tone of its predecessor.  Running 138 minutes and opening with a classically styled cartoon featuring the Warner Brothers logo, Pheonix’s follow-up premiered at the Venice Film Festival ahead of its theatrical release.  Like the previous installment, this version of Gotham is largely devoid of the justice that Bruce Wayne will bring to it, largely in part because he is still a boy, but Folie à Deux does feel like it is trying to work in more of the DC characters not in a way that plays like total fan service, but Phillips does seem to be a little more interested in crafting a larger narrative with reveals that are supposed to inspire excitement and whip the fans into a frenzy of speculation to fuel the franchise machine.

Joker was praised by many and scorned by some for taking such a realist yet nihilistic approach to the story, but the key to its success was in its simplicity.  In Folie à Deux – a film that runs almost 20 minutes longer than the first – Phillips et al. have challenged themselves to reinvent the tone of the film by incorporating an incredible amount of music.  Doing so is a bold swing, probably the last bit of inventiveness this branch of the studio will see before James Gunn takes over control of the DCEU universe, but like even the best musicals, the film is at war with itself when it breaks for song as the narrative drives to a screeching halt while the film indulges and insists upon itself.  Further, because it does not use new, purpose-written music, the sequences seldom feel like they came about organically.  Folie à Deux rather seems like it was puzzle pieced around the needle drops, and further, because the songs are performed as covers, it is something entirely different than a rock opera or artist retrospective which fans of the music could still enjoy in their seats as a stand-in for a live event.  The music is, by and large, not especially refined safe for a few instances, and while this hesitant timbre fits in with the fractured characters and non-idyllic world of the film, it is not particularly pleasant to listen to as they speak the lyrics with a little rhythm and intention in their voice as opposed to crooning in the way the songs were originally intended. 

Looking at the performances, Pheonix falls pretty well in line with where his portrayal of Fleck left off.  It is not picking up mere moments after the events of the 2019 mega-hit, nor does the previous film really seem like required viewing – though, some finer details will be lost without that knowledge, the script does a good job at filling in gaps or jogging the memory of viewers.  Despite the change of location to a maximum-security prison and stripped of any agency he may have had in the first film, Pheonix is not afforded too many opportunities to delve deeper into this iteration of the Joker’s philosophy.  The film offers plenty of opportunity for introspection through meetings with Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), the corrupt warden, his therapist, Deborah (Sharon Washington), and his attorney, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), but Phillips and Silver mostly use these scenes to hint at a troubled past to pad out the plot in a way that does not allow for the character to become more robust or whole.  Arthur is the Joker – a central theme of the film and what DA Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) has built his case around – but the script posits that a little further out stating that if Arthur is the Joker, then the Joker is also Arthur. It frames these two truths in such a way that they cancel each other out meaning that there is no Joker; only Arthur.  

Opposite Pheonix is Gaga who is rather lackluster in the role of Lee as Phillips fails to really play to the singer-turned-actresses’ strengths to more fully exploit this bit of stunt casting that could and should have been able to inject some real life into the script; just one of the many instances Phillips is rubbing the audience’s nose into this story as if to punish them for their expectations.  If the script fails to inspire Pheonix, then its approach to Gaga’s Lee can only be seen as a work of malicious apathy.  There are kernels of interest here, especially regarding her self-appointed status as Joker’s #1 fan, but her screen time is limited and these elements can barely be explored on the screen.  To be fair to Gaga who is normally able to put forward a much stronger performance, it is likely that this absence from the screen is directly reflective of an absence on the page so that she can not even bring to her scenes a character with a coherent and confident back story.  At the risk of extending this already bloated runtime, had Phillips opted instead for dialogue over music, Lee could have been a much better foil to Arthur and offer a better reflection of the audience which Phillips seeks to chastise.

When it comes to the music, the film’s mismanagement of Gaga is probably its biggest sin.  There are a few flights of fancy where she can really get to belt out the music and command the screen as the performer she has long proven herself to be, but more often than not she, too, is stuck singing in a wavering, scared voice.  Further, her character design leaves a lot to be desired in the leap from where anything goes on the pages of the comic books to the much more grounded and dour world of the film.  Arianne Phillips does save the best for last, giving Lee a great costume when she finally embraces the role of Harley Quinn during the final trial date, and here, too, is where the script finally begins to make its play known to us with how it views both Joker and Lee as pathetic creatures; ones stuck in a failed system, but ultimately creatures of their own making. 

In 2019, Phillips and Silver penned a mean-spirited script that offered an incredibly bleak view of the world, so much so that news outlets and the media cycle seemed to almost salivate at the thought of acts of violence being carried out by bad actors in cheap Joker get up at cinemas opening weekend.  The headlines and warnings seemed almost like incantations, and though Folie à Deux is a story that is full of contempt, it seems strangely placed as it is not levied against the systems that were overcome with bloodlust some five years prior, but it is towards the fans of the film and the character that led it to being the highest grossing R-Rated film up until the release of Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) earlier in the summer.  Lee’s arc is one of disillusionment having grown enamored by Joker to the point of derailing her life to meet him. This dark brand of hero worship is incredibly engaging for the little bit that it is explored and it turns her character into a surrogate for those who worshipped at the Altar of Fleck as Phillips denounces them and their often violent and vile rhetoric.  It is unlikely that the menist groups on Facebook will be making fan edit memes from screencaps of Folie à Deux as the whole purpose of the film seems to be to disassemble the notion that Joker is some martyr for the self-marginalized. 

Phillips divorces his Joker from this perversely romanticized image that it had taken on in the back half of the film while he sits on trial.  It is a bit of a paradox why this works so well because it is simply relitigating what we had already seen in the previous film without offering many new details or deeper perspectives, yet it is the most engrossing part of the film by a long shot.  It sees both Sophie (Zazie Beetz) and Gary (Leigh Gill) return to the film to give their testimony against Arthur, the latter of whom has a really standout appearance as the closing witness of the prosecution, but this trial also allows Keener to really flex in her role as Arthur’s attorney. Magnetic and fierce from her first scene, she’s a straight shooter who absolutely steals every scene she is in; no makeup, song and dance, or antics are required.  The energy of the courtroom scenes are not lost even after she is fired from the case because the script finally lets Pheonix rip loose with a fractured performance that calls into question how we have reacted to the events in the film so far. Culminating in a bold narrative swing that we at first view as yet another fantasy of Arthur’s, Phillips does feel a bit like he is returning to the well by wrapping his film up in chaos and mayhem again, but it is undeniably thrilling to watch; a bit of damning commentary given the themes and intentions of the film. 

Phillips has finally regained his stride and Folie à Deux has a great and tragic final act, even if it is a touch self-indulgent and a little too reflective as it downright mimics one of the final shots of Joker with Arthur slouching in the back seat of the car, his head pressed against the widow. The themes get a little muddy as the ending draws out, but the action has that same bleakness that we admired so much in his first film in this duology.  It is, however, a perfect example of what happens when we do not leave well enough alone as the sequel is totally inconsequential almost as if it was conceived to continually deliver jab after jab into the guts of its audience who bought their tickets hungry for more.  It is a cruel joke to play because even for those who are not part of the punch line, they still have to sit through a too-long slog with little to honestly offer them but a misplaced scolding.  The story is flat, the music misplaced, and even the audacity to make a musical around the clown prince of crime seems blunt and contrived in this format as if Phillips is trying too hard to be edgy like a brand account cashing in on a meme, trying to be cool.  As counter-industry as the film is trying to present itself, it feels so much more like a cog in the machine and it blends into the background hum as the studio wheels keep churning along.