The sequel to 2019’s 'Joker' is the buzziest title of this year’s Venice Film Festival. This time, Lady Gaga joins director Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix for a follow-up that isn’t a straightforward psychological thriller but a semi-jukebox musical. Bold gambit. Shame it doesn't pay off.
ADVERTISEMENTThe much-anticipated follow-up to Todd Phillips’ Golden Lion and Oscar-winning film is here and... Well, best not to turn your frowns upside down. Joker: Folie À Deux is less of a victory lap and more of a fumbled slog.
We catch up with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham Asylum. He’s awaiting trial for the murder of five people, and gets signed up for a music therapy class. Because that’s apparently the reward you get for taking your meds and behaving.
There, he meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga), an arsonist who is a big fan of Joker’s, isn’t afraid to lie when she needs to, and has it all figured out. The pair embark on a bad romance that features Golden Age Hollywood hits.
“I love her,” Arthur shares. “She gets me.”
Does she? Or is she playing him for a fool?
Joker: Folie À Deux starts promisingly with an homage to Looney Tunes. We get a cartoon entitled ‘Me and My Shadow’, the first of many dichotomy references, as it transpires that the titular folie may not to be the shared delirium between Arthur and Lee, but the power struggle between Arthur and his Joker alter-ego. That’s certainly the multiple personality disorder defence that Arthur’s lawyer (Catherine Keener) is gunning for as the "Trial of the Century” draws near.
Props must go to the fact that Joker: Folie À Deux does the opposite of what you’d expect a Joker sequel to be; not only does it contain musical numbers, but it’s also a (middling) prison play and a (tedious) courtroom drama that wrongfoots fans of the first film. Especially the ones who misread Joker. “Let’s give the people what they want,” Lee whispers to Arthur during a fantasy musical number... To Phillip’s credit, he avoids doing that at every turn, making Folie À Deux a clumsy missile aimed at toxic fan culture through wasted metatextual references regarding Arthur’s constant need to be reassured about the quality of the film made about him after he was arrested, and certainly via the character of Lee.
It's an unexpected gambit but one which quickly reveals itself to be predictable and very poorly written. Despite threads touching upon the warped delusions of the collective unconscious, the cult of personality and how no one cares about the man behind the makeup, Folie À Deux is a hollow show that is gimmicky in the extreme.
The fantasy musical numbers are very well shot by cinematographer Lawrence Sher, but as they stack up, they become repetitive and half-baked, lacking verve and folly. And when you side-line Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s outstanding work in favour of underwhelming musical scenes, something has gone very wrong – especially when her score was one of the best parts of the first film.
A bolder statement would have been to make it a full-blown musical or even invert the focus by having the story unfold entirely from Lee’s perspective. As it is, Lady Gaga feels wasted as a supporting player instead of the double-bill headliner, and considering how intrinsic her character’s hubristophilic tendencies are to the film’s themes, this baffling decision goes to show that Phillips is in way over his head. Joker may have earned him (over)praise for merging The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, but this sequel shows that he’s the biggest clown of all.
His admittedly audacious gambit of utilising song-and-dance numbers falls flat, as they do little to further the narrative or character motivations; instead, they feel like the excuse the director needed to cast Gaga. Worse, the chosen songs are so on-the-nose that the sounds of ‘That’s Entertainment’, ‘I’ve Got the World on a String’, ‘What the World Needs Now’ and ‘Gonna Build A Mountain’ are groan-worthy and suggest that Phillips was at a loss when it came to plot so just tagged on some songs to pad out the screen-time.
Phoenix’s dedication to the role is impressive (he looks even skinnier than in the first film, with his protruding shoulder blades threatening to poke your eyes out at any moment), but little is added to his Oscar-winning performance. Not even his best work can save Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver cack-handed attempts to be innovative and edgy.
“I don’t want to sing anymore,” he pleads to Lee towards the film’s final moments. We're sick of hearing it too, Arthur.
Underwhelming and strangely monotonous, Joker: Folie À Deux may not give the people what they want, but it certainly doesn’t offer up anything interesting instead. Not a folly worth entertaining.
Joker: Folie À Deuxpremiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival in Competition. It hits theatres on 4 October.
