Joker Sequel Hits Mostly Sour Notes

A popular quote thrown around a lot (courtesy of inspirational posters and The Office) is you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. Joker: Folie à Deux takes a lot of swings and not a single one connects. The film also seems mad to have an audience (of fans or haters) and truly becomes an unpleasant ordeal to sit through. 

I was slightly more optimistic for this film than I was for 2019’s Joker. Harley Quinn is one of my favorite characters in Gotham and the idea of a Joker musical was admittedly intriguing in a slightly upsetting way. Then the press blitz began, denying it was a musical. One of the first quotes I read was “Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It’s just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead” from director Todd Phillips. I had to re-read this line several times as I believe that is, in fact, the exact definition of a musical. After seeing the film, I can say I have never experienced a more insulting use of the word musical. It makes me wish I could mount an apology to the genre. 

There is no strong plot element here. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is at trial for his five murders (actually six but the movie seems to forget this until 40 minutes in) and while in lockup he meets Lee (played by Lady Gaga, desperately trying to infuse anything interesting into this nothingburger of a character). Arthur is taken with her and the musical sequences start almost immediately. 

This film shows a lot, and I do mean a lot, of prison abuse so I expected it to perhaps touch on this in any sort of meaningful way, but the official stance seems to be “huh, that happens alright.” This brings me to my biggest compliment and biggest complaint about the film. At its heart Joker: Folie à Deux is made of rage and disappointment. So was 2019’s offering to this franchise. While Joker had a target of this rage, Joker: Folie à Deux is scattershot, hitting even the people who are trying to genuinely help Arthur and the audience. This film also continues the 2019 film’s bad habit of throwing poorly researched psychology terms at Arthur, in this case trying to mount a defense that he has what we now call dissociative identity disorder. Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver continue to show women lacking complexity, being only the inciting incident for men to be interesting and it makes the whole thing feel like a less focused rehash of the previous film. It all continues to feel very icky. (Points for consistency, I guess.)

The musical sequences on the whole are well shot and interesting to look at. I did enjoy the idea of this although I felt they didn’t integrate well into the story. I honestly would’ve respected this film a hell of a lot more (and probably enjoyed it more to boot) if it chose to be a balls to the wall surrealist rock opera instead of a teenage boy’s rendering of “I bet I can make anything edgy, even a musical!” Phillips, please for the love of God watch Spring Awakening and drop this misguided belief that all musicals are joyous, unrealistic affairs. The writing feels juvenile (no characters show how they feel as much as they do tell you while acting and boy is everyone really acting as hard as they can.) The performances, especially in the musical sequences really shine but it’s just not enough to land this plane that’s falling apart in the air. 

In summary, Joker: Folie à Deux played for ten minutes in the theater with no visuals and just sound at my screening. They graciously restarted it for us but the blank screen, imagining what might be happening while the music plays was my favorite part of the whole film. 

I give Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros.; R; 2 hrs 18 mins)1.5 out of 5.