“Folie à Deux” dares to be different, but falls on its head

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Deux is part of tango.

Summary

In Joker: Folie à DeuxArthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) is imprisoned in Arkham Asylum for the murders he committed years earlier. The guards enroll Arthur in a music therapy course, where he meets fellow inmate Harleen “Lee” Quinzell (Lady Gaga). They begin a romance and both share delusions in which they imagine themselves in musical scenarios.

Arthur is deemed mentally competent to stand trial, causing a media sensation and reigniting the unrest he originally caused as the Joker. During the trial, Arthur’s defense attempts to portray the Joker as having a split personality, causing Arthur to confront his true self.

My thoughts

I’m not a huge comic book fan, but Batman and his collection of figures are the only ones that really interest me. I’ve looked at all the other comic titles and their adaptations before, but when there’s a new Batman or Batman-related movie or series coming out, I’m always interested in checking it out.

Like every other Batman fan out there, I love the Joker, even if I find his character a bit over the top at this point. Even then, it’s a blast watching the different actors interpret the iconic villain in different ways. What’s impressive is that each actor always finds a different way to do this, with Joaquin Phoenix earning an Oscar for his more down-to-earth approach to the character.

Do we really need this?

I thought Todd Phillips’ joker was an excellent film and Phoenix did a phenomenal job with the character, but it felt like lightning in a bottle that captured the zeitgeist of that specific time. Furthermore, it was a complete story that needs no sequel. The point was made and the story was told. It seemed like there wasn’t much more that could be achieved with this particular iteration.

While I felt like I was making a joker The sequel was largely unnecessary, part of me wanted to see Phoenix back in the role just because we saw so little of him in full Joker garb. One of the reasons for this follow-up exists because Phoenix felt the same way – as if his character hadn’t been fully explored. I’m sure another reason is that the first movie made a billion dollars.

But what else could you do? When rumors of a sequel arose, my first response was, “Uh, do we really need that?” Then the official announcement came and two details caught my eye: it would be a musical and Lady Gaga would star as Harley Quinn. I wasn’t very curious at first, but now Todd Phillips had that and my attention.

Although it still seems like a controversial decision to this day, in my opinion it was the best way to make the sequel a musical. It actually made strange sense, considering Phoenix’s Joker had a more theatrical side, with all the singing, dancing, and desire to become a star. Lady Gaga, who is both an excellent singer and an excellent performer, was just icing on the cake as Harley Quinn, Joker’s love interest.

Sing into the void

I have to admit, I’m a big fan of the music genre. I love the singing and dancing, the glitz and glamor and how they take themselves seriously but at the same time don’t take themselves seriously. They’re just so much fun, but what I like most about them is the way the filmmakers shoot and choreograph everything. Staging a musical on screen requires immense craftsmanship and skill that other genres don’t necessarily require.

So consider me deeply disappointed if the weakest parts of Joker: Folie à Deux are by far the musical scenes. The idea is good in theory, because Joker and Harley Quinn sing to themselves or imagine these musical set pieces in their heads. Folie à deux is French for “madness for two,” so it was smart to get them to break out into musical numbers. Only the implementation is disappointingly poor.

As I said, what I love most about musicals is the choreography, which seemed almost non-existent here. Much of the dancing is what we saw last time, with Joker’s slow, graceful movements as if he were conducting an orchestra. When Joker and Harley Quinn sing together, they usually just look into each other’s eyes as they sway. I thought Phillips would just start small and build up to an epic musical number at the end, but that aspect never comes to fruition.

It seemed really easy since most of these sequences are purely fantasy sequences. It’s all in their heads and reality doesn’t apply, so give it your all! Give us backup singers dressed as clowns, big sweeping crane shots, or Joker and Harley dances! At least give us something. Instead, it’s mostly them singing on small stages surrounded by a black void, or extras doing next to nothing.

While I appreciate that Phillips did something unconventional for his sequel, it feels like he went a little too introspective with the musical perspective. He even admitted that putting the different takes together into a coherent musical sequence was a “nightmare.” Phillips is a talented director himself, but he is not a good musical director. None of it feels as grand as the musicals it’s inspired by.

Make your own music

The biggest missed opportunity was making it a jukebox musical and not having any original songs. Lady Gaga literally stars in your film, she sings and dances, and you don’t want her to write original material? Not even a piece? Instead, Phillips continues to wear his influences on his sleeve, having the characters sing a variety of show tunes and lounge classics.

While there are a lot of people who hate movies where characters break out into song and dance, the songs are still important to the development of the story, characters, and themes. Phoenix and Gaga both do good work with their performances here, but since these songs weren’t written for the film, you rarely feel like they actually serve any narrative function.

For the first time I felt like the people who hate musicals. After about 45 minutes I thought, “Oh, great. Here we go again” whenever the characters started singing. At this point I could have forgone the musical aspect entirely and just gone with a regular sequel, because the non-musical scenes are actually quite good.

When we just a joker When I read the sequel about his life in Arkham and the trial, I was completely amazed. Because Phillips brought back his crew members like cinematographer Lawrence Sher and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, the depressing, sickly tone of the first film is still intact here. It’s even more depressing when you consider that Arthur’s asylum and courtroom are even more isolated than his previous surroundings.

Order in court

As Arthur stands trial, we learn more about his character through the various testimonies of characters from the first film. Not only does it recontextualize some events from this installment, but it also shows the deeper implications of Arthur’s actions. Even though he didn’t murder the character he perceived as being “nice” to him, he still ruined her life in an irreparable psychological way.

While Arthur is technically the protagonist in both of his films, the first joker he never really faced his demons. He finally snaps and accepts his Joker persona, the chaos and political unrest he has caused. When Arthur truly has to confront his terrible actions in court, he must accept himself for the monster he truly is, even if he thinks society may be to blame.

This is Phoenix’s first time reprising a role and it was worth returning as Arthur Fleck. If you can believe it, he’s even better than last time, taking his version of the Joker to depths we haven’t seen before. He’s even sadder, pathetic and psychotic here, especially when he’s juggling (no pun intended) between his supposed two roles.

It feels like a decidedly well-rounded version of the character. Someone who is mentally ill and sees the world through a theatrical lens. His entire life consists of one great feat that he accomplishes, heavily influenced by the media he consumed as a child. The Joker talking in the courtroom like he’s Atticus Finch is funny on the surface, but it’s a symbol of a broken man operating entirely on fantasy.

Unfortunately, Lady Gaga’s role as Harley Quinn, the Joker’s lover, was a major stagnation. This isn’t Gaga’s fault either, as she was never given the opportunity to dive into the depths that Phoenix does. Harley is so well integrated and poorly integrated into the narrative that it feels like she’s there for obligatory reasons. It barely focuses on the larger plot or Arthur’s character development and largely feels like an afterthought.

It’s a shame, because the relationship between Joker and Harley Quinn is one of the most iconic romances in all of comics, despite how twisted and abusive it is. There’s a lot of material to draw from, but like the first one jokerPhillips is clearly not interested in directly adapting these characters. He wants to tell his own story and be inspired by the Batman mythos. It worked the first time, but again lightning in a bottle.

Final verdict

I, Hunter V. Norris of the jury, find Joker: Folie à Deux…guilty of being a huge missed opportunity and overall kind of pointless. During the final act of the film, the specific thought that occurred to me was, “What are we doing here?” Aside from Joaquin Phoenix giving more insight into his version of the Joker, there wasn’t much going on with Todd Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver.

All the good stuff here is the stuff we got the first time. It’s the new things that made this project interesting in the first place that completely falter at first glance. Joker: Folie à Deux This isn’t a question of “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” but rather a question of “Why even bother?”

My rating: 5.5/10

Joker: Folie à Deux hits cinemas nationwide on Friday, October 4th.

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