‘Got a joke for us today?‘
The discourse that followed the huge success of Todd Phillips’ 2019 smash Joker was as inevitable as it was tiresome. There is a worrying modern-day trend to retrofit some kind of incel manifesto onto films like Joker and Fight Club or to dismiss their message as simplistic and blunt. I rewatched Joker in preparation for this sequel and still find it to be a prescient and timely howl of anguish that has plenty to say but is entertaining, compelling and innovative. I begin with this preamble to explain that I didn’t go into Folie à Deux with my knives out ready to hate it. And while I didn’t hate it, there is no denying that this film is an utter catastrophe…
We begin with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) locked up in Arkham Asylum with his murder trial looming large on the horizon. On his way to the courtroom, Arthur catches the attention of ‘Lee’ (Lady Gaga) at a music therapy session and the two become close. That’s pretty much it in terms of set-up and plot.
Part courtroom drama and part musical, this second (and presumably final) entry in the Joker franchise takes everything people loved about the original and twists it into something even more nihilistic and misanthropic. While that conceit sounds like it could be great, or at least interesting, in the end, it is neither. Much has been made of the decision to present the relationship between Joker and Lee in the style of a jukebox musical, in truth, however, while that decision is fairly baffling, some of the musical numbers are genuinely exhilarating. The more pressing issue is that Folie à Deux is just… dull. The film has absolutely nothing to say beyond providing a critique of the entertainment industry and while there are some nice visual flourishes (the umbrella shot near the start of the film is lovely), Phillips’ sequel too often feels like an empty vessel. Lady Gaga’s performance is the highlight of the film with Phoenix (presumably deliberately) a lot less captivating this time around, and the two do share an electric chemistry, but in the end, they don’t share enough screentime and like much of the film, their relationship is ultimately without meaning.
It is astonishing that both Megalopolis and Folie à Deux, two of the most baffling films ever to receive a wide release, arrived in the same calendar year – a phenomenon unlikely to be repeated any time soon. After the success of Joker, the fact that Phillips has used that leverage (he had final cut here) to create something as difficult to love as Folie à Deux should probably be applauded in a way, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a portentous, pretentious slog of a movie that will go down in cinematic legend as one of the most disastrous sequels ever made.
