Joker: Folie à Deux, the much-anticipated sequel of the 2019 billion-dollar blockbuster film Joker, left critics divided and audiences alike scratching their heads.
Joker: Folie à Deux premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 4, 2024, and was released theatrically on Oct. 4, 2024, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
The film is currently sitting at a 31% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and had a $37.6 million domestic opening, compared to the first film with a $96.2 million domestic opening weekend and a 68% critics score.
The movie-turned-musical was controversial, to say the least, and after seeing this film, I had some thoughts and opinions of my own.
Directed by Todd Phillips, the film stars Academy Award winner Joaquin Phoenix, who won Best Actor for playing Arthur Fleck in the first Joker film, and Lady Gaga, who plays Arthur’s love interest Lee Quinzel.
Joker: Folie à Deux follows a now confined Arthur Fleck, who’s awaiting trial on murder charges in Arkham State Hospital. As the trial sets in, Arthur’s lawyer argues that he committed those crimes as the Joker, which is a separate personality from his own. This defence is one that Arthur toys with, creating conflict within himself and those around him.
While institutionalized, Arthur meets Lee Quinzel and embarks on an intoxicating romance. However, the plight of their relationship comes when Arthur chooses to reject the Joker narrative, as Lee is only interested in this fantasy and takes on a character of her own.
My issue with this film is not that it ambitiously added musical elements to enhance the allure and madness of our anti-hero Fleck, but that there were missed opportunities to explore it further in Gaga’s character Lee.
Gaga’s character was severely underused, and I kept wanting to know more about her. I wish the film gave her character more depth rather than her being a means to an end to the Joker facade. Maybe that was the point, but it didn’t land well enough.
However, Gaga shined as usual, with her vocal prowess and openness to the delicate balance of insanity in her performance.
While I admire Phillips’ ambition and bold decision to take risks with this project, the bulk of the film takes place between Arkham State Hospital and the courtroom. This is where the film fell flat. We experience much of this film waiting for a wild ride that never truly takes place.
Maybe I expected to see Arthur and Lee break out of Arkham and go on a massive killing spree while singing to express their shared madness. Instead, we got the singing but with courtroom semantics. Any deeper message that was trying to be conveyed through this film and possibly through its perception didn’t connect.
Despite the direction of this film, Phoenix remained committed to his role as Fleck and managed to maintain a distinctly menacing and vulnerable performance as he did in the first. Phoenix’s ability to sing in this movie pleasantly surprised me as I thought each musical number brought me into Fleck’s psyche and humanized his character throughout the film.
That’s one thing I appreciate about Phillips’ Joker franchise; we get a completely different and more human take on the iconic DC character. We’ve seen the likes of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Jared Leto play this character. Phoenix’s Joker is the most “ordinary” in the best way. He’s not a boss and has no henchmen. He’s just Arthur.
Despite the beautiful musical numbers in this film, most notably: “What the World Needs Now is Love,” it didn’t make up for the ending, which left me feeling extremely frustrated.
While I won’t give any spoilers of what happened, I walked away, neither loving nor hating this film but feeling disappointed by its outcome. What was once one of my most highly anticipated films of the year became “just another movie I saw” this year.
With a budget of $200 million, I expected more. Nevertheless, I respect the art form and the risks Phillips took. Besides, there are tons of Joker films out there and never enough original content.