“Please, no more singing,” says Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, slapping his hand over Lee’s (Lady Gaga) mouth in the last few moments of Todd Phillips’ interminable Joker: Folie à Deux. It’s unclear whether the groans of agreement that thundered at his pleading were from our fellow cinemagoers or a figment of our own folie, but the truth remains: despite our love of 2019’s Joker and enthusiasm for the bold promise of a musical sequel, this feature is joyless, resentful of its existence, and – most unforgivably – boring.
Folie à Deux picks up shortly after the first film, with Arthur now locked up in Gotham City’s isolated fortress, Arkham Asylum. He is pitiable, further emaciated and medicated into little more than a joke-teller performing for the casually cruel guards (Brendan Gleeson among them, greatly underutilised). The question of whether he is mentally fit enough to stand trial is the plot’s axis: ambitious district attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) wants him prosecuted to the full extent of the law, while Arthur’s gentle, solicitous lawyer (Catherine Keener) argues Arthur and Joker are two distinct personalities, and one should not be punished for the crimes of the other.
Among it all is Lady Gaga in the much-heralded role of Harleen Quinzel — known in DC comics as our beloved Harley Quinn. Here, however, the iconic character is pillaged for parts and left bare as “Lee”, a character as devoid of personality, agency, and presence as her new, stripped-down name suggests. A pyromaniac and compulsive liar who meets Arthur at a music rehabilitation class, she’s little more than a device to destabilise Arthur once more, and to lend Gaga’s voice to a few mumbly musical interludes. And to be clear, this isn’t the film making a point about thinly drawn female characters being used as narrative devices for men’s stories. It’s simply an utter waste of a talented and charismatic performer.
Joker: Folie à Deux also suffers from apparent disconcertment as to its own existence. Firstly, because Phillips is seemingly confused in his intentions: does he have in view to subvert the incels that so uncritically embraced Fleck as a hero in the first movie, by deconstructing the image of ‘Joker’ to its unremarkable, unmythologised parts? Or is Folie à Deux doubling down on the premise of the white, outcast male as a victim of society, of women (in Lee’s manipulation and dismissal of him), and of the structures of power (also note that not a single victim of Gotham’s police force is Black)? It does both, which negates either and results in a mess we’re uninterested in detangling.
Second to the film’s problem-filled relationship to its subject, is that Phillips walks back his promise of a ballsy, bombastic musical film. Making the movie a surreal, fantastical musical would have been audacious, original, and would have played well with the very idea of a ‘folie à deux’ – unfortunately, Folie à Deux is a musical ashamed of being a musical. There’s no commitment to the music aspects, no major set pieces nor appreciation or apparent love for the genre, and thus no justification as to why it would sell itself as such. In fact, it reminds us of a teenager’s performance in a compulsory Music class, hoping to scrape a passing grade and never think on the song again. And after boarding Lady Gaga in a lead role? That’s worth an insanity plea.
And for the record, it’s also a bad courtroom drama. At the end of the day (and by day, we mean the painfully long, 138-minute runtime), Joker: Folie à Deux has nothing interesting or relevant to say, seems to resent its creation – there’s a reason 2019’s Joker was only ever intended as a standalone, you greedy studio bastards –, and wastes its performers. Phoenix doesn’t even look like he wants to be there. And frankly, we have to agree.
