Joker: Folie à Deux review: the joke’s on us

Joker: Folie à Deux is a movie musical set between a prison and a courthouse, with A-list stars and a vastly popular comic book IP leading the show. But in terms of its cultural impact, I’m quite sure it’ll fade faster than fairy floss in a pig trough.

You may recall the hundreds of think-pieces spawned by Joker (2019) that criticised it for ‘romanticising incel culture’, and wrung hands over it potentially inspiring criminal activity from those that related to Joaquin Phoenix’s hard-done-by clown Arthur Fleck.

The panic surrounding it absolutely kept it in the cultural zeitgeist for quite some time (well, that and the meme-able ‘stair dance‘ scene). But the film did not actually give way to outbursts of violence – it just gave awkward, misguided white males something to mould their personalities around for a while.

In the time that’s passed, many have been wondering what director Todd Phillips would do next with his grimdark/depressing take on Gotham’s clown prince of crime. When the sequel was confirmed to be a musical, some were left scratching their heads. I was elated. Not thinking much of the 2019 flick, I thought some left-of-field razzle-dazzle could be just the thing to get me excited about the Joker again.

In Joker: Folie à Deux, Arthur Fleck faces trial for the murders he committed in Joker (2019). He’s also struggling with being labelled – by his lawyer and prison guards alike – as having a dual personality. Is the Joker persona merely a showbiz mask, or is he an entirely different person? Meanwhile, a trip to the prison choir program gives him the chance to meet cute with Harleen Quinzel (AKA Harley Quinn, played here by Lady Gaga) and start an ill-fated romance where, for possibly the first time in his life, Fleck’s feelings are reciprocated.

And yes, there is a lot of singing.

Off-off-off-off Broadway

Right off the bat, I was stung by just how boring this film was. Opening with a jaunty animation that sets up the central theme of Joker and Fleck being two separate personalities, it shows some promise in terms of opening up the proverbial sandbox to sift through the grains within – but that’s almost immediately betrayed when we cut to the ‘real world’ and have to observe the emaciated Fleck in his daily, wordless prison routine.

So much time is wasted plodding through the same ground that was tread through in Joker; establishing Fleck as a deeply mentally ill man with delusions of grandeur, which we knew already. It’s almost unbearable, save for Brendan Gleeson as a charming prison guard (how he manages to make a prison guard charming, I don’t know) who escorts Fleck to and from his appointments, and Catherine Keener as Fleck’s lawyer Maryanne Stewart, who leads him into angling for a disassociative-identity defense in his upcoming trial. There’s also Steve Coogan, playing a TV interviewer (and trying so hard not to be Alan Partridge) – an odd but intriguing choice for a film that’s best described as ‘morose’.

The film is surprisingly let down most by its two leads, Phoenix and Gaga, who mumble their way through awkward first kisses and escape attempts. While not bringing much in the way of convincing acting, it’s obvious Gaga is there to elevate the musical component, which mostly consists of well-known jazz and blues numbers, with a few Motown ballads thrown in. But not even her stagecraft savviness can save this plodding script.

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All that jazz

With a psychologically tense narrative, and the promise of big jazzy song and dance numbers interjecting the trial proceedings, Joker: Folie à Deux had the potential to be something like Primal Fear meets Chicago. More’s the pity, then, that Phillips backs away from full commitment to the bit, and instead opts to have all musical numbers done in dream sequences, where Gaga shyly croons in character as Quinzel and Phoenix does whatever he thinks singing is.

The musical sections, which include songs like Put on A Happy Face, Get Happy, That’s Life, That’s Entertainment and other on-the-nose choices, contain some really interesting set pieces and costumes: moonlit rooftops for Quinzel and Fleck to waltz around in their formal wear, and technicolour television studios that host imaginary duets between the two.

The intentional disconnect between these daydreams and the real Gotham doesn’t stick the landing, though, and instead comes off as a lack of belief in the film’s own conceits. In other words, if you’re going to do a musical, then commit to it: dancing prisoners, fan twirling jury members, singing judges, the lot! Don’t be a coward, Phillips!

In amongst all that jarring fluctuation between the lengthy, joyless court proceedings and the sort of two-hour high-school musical your parents had to sit through, there is an increasingly pandering moral message that Phillips is laying down with the thickest storytelling paint available.

Should we treat mentally ill people as sources of entertainment? Obviously not. There are other films he could make to spread this message though – a DC licensed film about a comic book villain is just not the way to do it.

There’s only one thing I demand from a film about the Joker: he has to be funny. Arthur Fleck is so much of a goddamned bummer that it makes the 2+ hour runtime almost painful to endure. Plus, a last-minute Act-3 decision to pivot hard into Batman comics lore renders anything interesting this film had to say immediately moot. I left the film wishing it had begun at the end … and that Brendan Gleeson had worn tap shoes for the duration of it.

At least it will be harder for the incels to project their insecurities onto this one.

Joker: Folie à Deux is in cinemas now.