Todd Phillips‘ Joker was a radical break from the conventional tone used to depict DC’s most famous villain. Rather than depict him as a ravening madman, his laughter was a nervous tic and he could hardly be said to be relishing his life. A mix of Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and the case of New York Subway vigilante Bernie Goetz, it used the Joker as a means to show the effects of a city in decline. In Joker: Folie à Deux, Phillips brings back Joaquin Phoenix as the hapless, wretched Arthur Fleck and continues where his first film left off.
This time, Arthur Fleck is in Arkham Asylum awaiting trial for his murders, when he meets Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga) and the two fall in love and make plans for Gotham. Meanwhile, Arthur is being coached by his lawyer (Catherine Keener) to give the right answers in court to secure an insanity verdict. Phillips has also taken a real risk and made the film a musical, but like Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, the musical scenes take place within the characters’ fantasies.
Critics confusing depiction for endorsement slammed Phillips for making the Joker a sympathetic figure in the first film, thereby excusing his crimes. In the sequel, Fleck is torn between his desire for fame and his desire to impress Quinn and his need to escape full culpability. Throughout the film, Fleck is prone to flights of fancy that crash abruptly into the hard reality of his situation. Phillips is playing with audience expectations and desires too, denying them the vicarious thrill of siding with the Joker as he pulls off his elaborate, prankish crimes. Where Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight and Nicholson’s in Tim Burton’s Batman were both terrifying but also funny and alluring, Phoenix’s Fleck is a hesitant, tormented figure of pity. It’s hard not to read Quinn, the media and the brewing violence in Gotham as a stand-in for the audience, literally begging Fleck to embrace his shadow self, and Fleck’s fighting the urge to go full Joker as a stand-in for Phillips‘ own hesitance to make excuses for evil. Phillips refuses to give a hero’s journey to a villain, and as a result the film is bound to be divisive. To say the ending is unexpected is to understate things, but it really forces you to ask yourself what you were expecting or wanting.
If this all sounds a little too meta then rest assured, the final product is a striking piece of entertainment. Phoenix‘s performance is, again, amazing, and Lady Gaga is an excellent addition to the cast. The film, especially in IMAX, looks remarkable, and the musical interludes sweeten the rather bitter pill the film makes you swallow. It does go on a little at times, but it’s never less than engrossing thanks to Phoenix‘s performance. It seems unlikely that DC fans are going to fully embrace Joker: Folie à Deux, but anyone interested in the questions it raises about media and audience participation in the creation of monsters is bound to find it fascinating.
