A bold swing that results in . . . let’s say a single, Joker: Folie à Deux follows up the 2019 Joaquin Phoenix film by attempting to be a movie musical. Turns out that’s harder than its filmmakers likely anticipated.
Picking up shortly after the events of the earlier movie, Folie à Deux finds Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) at Arkham Asylum, awaiting trial for the murders he committed under the guise of Joker. Heavily medicated and routinely abused, he’s resigned to his fate—until he’s allowed to attend a music class and meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga, aka Stefani Germanotta). Lee—a variation on Harley Quinn from the Batman universe—is a fan of chaos in general and Fleck’s run as Joker in particular. And so while Arthur’s well-intentioned lawyer (Catherine Keener) encourages him to claim that Joker was a split personality he’s unable to control, Lee goads him into embracing the madness—an option that seems more nihilistically reasonable when he’s threatened with the death penalty.
As an admirer of 2019’s Joker, I was open to the notion of a musical sequel. And boy does Folie à Deux only raise expectations on that front in its early moments. Full of arresting, if fetid, imagery (as was its predecessor), the movie features an early sequence in which Arthur is ushered by four guards from one prison building to the next during a rainstorm. Each guard carries a black umbrella, while Arthur is left exposed to the downpour. But then the camera cuts to an overhead shot revealing that the umbrellas are each painted a different primary color, recalling one of the musical masterpieces of cinema, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Arthur has heard the music, we’re meant to understand—and I was ready to hear it as well.
Unfortunately, Folie à Deux fails to take full advantage of the musical format. Returning director Todd Phillips—who showed a surprising command of cinematic language in the first film—fails to bring a coherent formal strategy to this new genre. Some sequences exist only in the characters’ heads; others are dreams; some take place within the reality of the film at hand. And aside from a few haphazard, abrupt production numbers, most of the musical sequences are in close-up and quietly whispered—nearly a cappella renditions of familiar standards that take little advantage of the genre’s dynamic formal potential.
Tellingly, the sequence that works best is a self-contained production number with a clear beginning and ending, during which the singing both reveals the character’s psychology and moves the narrative forward. In Arkham, a newly inspired Arthur begins to sing “For Once in My Life” while in a room of fellow inmates who are otherwise dulled by a cartoon on television. The camera follows Phoenix as he moves around the room like a paper doll being blown about by the breeze, creating something of a wretched reverie.
It’s a puzzle that Lady Gaga isn’t given a similar, signature sequence. She’s criminally underused, only intermittently allowed to show off her pipes and dancing abilities. Say what you want about A Star is Born, but the movie certainly showcased her—and she returned the favor. You wonder why Phillips bothered casting her in a half-baked part that doesn’t even take advantage of her musical talents.
What does Joker: Folie à Deux get right? Especially as an extension of the first film, this registered most strongly for me as a tragic character study, focusing on Arthur Fleck as a deeply troubled man flailing dangerously, especially when left without a personal or social safety net. Some accused the first film of glorifying its antisocial Joker—a reading supported by the movie’s adoption by certain, toxic fan groups—but Folie à Deux doubles down on the strain of ambivalence and even deflation that I found in 2019. In fact, a late scene in Folie à Deux that I won’t spoil seems designed as a direct retort to those problematic fans.
Thanks to an inquisitive script by Phillips and Scott Silver, as well as Phoenix’s textured performance (yes, including a few of those music numbers), Folie à Deux suggests that Arthur’s life exists on a razor’s edge, one that has only gotten sharper with his incarceration. Trapped in a dangerous brew of manipulation, abuse, and his own violent impulses, he’s left—at the end of the movie—with a monumental choice to make. I’ll confess, I found his decision—and what it means for his ultimate fate—oddly affecting. If only the movie had managed a good musical number to go with it.
(10/5/2024)