Joker: Folie á Deux is a comic book movie and a musical made by Todd Phillips, a director deeply embarrassed by both genres. That should tell you all you need to know about why it so dramatically doesn’t work. Phillips made the choice to dot this movie with musical sequences, and yet publicly resists the Musical label in what appears to be a fear that it makes the film seem less serious. And just as in his 2019 Joker, he does everything possible to keep the comic book origins of this material at a distance. In fairness, it’s an approach that worked out for him on the last movie, which despite being particularly bad and derivative was a huge hit, and even won its star Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for one of the worst performances of his career.
But Phillips seems to dislike the people who loved the earlier film as much as those who hated it, if his portrait of their in-film analogue is anything to go by. Honestly, it’s difficult to parse why he made this movie, short of the blank cheque the last one gave him. Mostly, I suspect it’s again an effort to prove himself as a serious filmmaker beyond the comedies he made his name on. But he still can't articulate himself as more than an imitator of great artists rather than a great artist himself.
Scorsese was the stark influence on the earlier movie, and he still is quite a notable one here, with a long one-shot at the start in a style a la Raging Bull or Goodfellas. It establishes in grim terms the routine of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), even further emaciated in Arkham Asylum as he awaits trial for the murders committed in the earlier movie. In prison he meets and falls in love with delusional arsonist Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) -her more popular name is never once uttered- who is a great fan of his and fantasizes about the two of them running away together. Once released, she becomes a key source of public support for him in the "Trial of the Century" that takes up much of the last two acts. Oh, and all of this is broken up by fantasy sequences of major musical numbers performed by the Joker and Lee.
Because the first movie so closely resembled The King of Comedy, when I heard the sequel was going to be a musical, I expected it would echo New York New York in a similar manner. But Phillips actually avoids playing that tune. Instead he makes sure to ground the movie, sequestering its musical numbers to clear fantasies and dream ballets that are extensions of Arthur's psyche -extensions of the Joker, which the movie very poorly attempts to make the case is a separate identity from the miserable Arthur.
It's the case that his lawyer, played by Catherine Keener, puts forward. That a split personality and clinical insanity is to blame for the string of murders he committed in the last movie, and which this one spends way too much time re-litigating. Phillips seems to want to express this view by virtue of his opening the movie on a Looney Tunes-style cartoon, that irrespective of its content is very well-animated with several fine details, that plays out the plot of the previous movie as some anarchic entity possessing Arthur, reigning chaos, only to leave him in time for him to be punished. There's also the way that Lee is drawn as an agent of chaos longing for and bringing out the Joker identity that Arthur might otherwise suppress. It is an interesting theme, but not one the movie makes much of a case for -partly due to the broadness of Phoenix's unhinged performance making every facet look like an act; but also because the line between the attention and affection Arthur craves and the resurgence of the Joker persona is too stark and organic -for him it's no different than code-switching.
The Joker is just an act, and while Phillips may not lean to present it that way consciously, he does at least grasp the falseness of the whole identity -split personality or not. Perhaps his sharpest point and the one seemingly most designed to draw the ire of fans is that Arthur Fleck is a pathetic and easily-manipulated loser, and not in any way the cool underdog anti-hero speaking truth to power he came across as to many fans of that first film. Lee is set up as an avatar of those fans, referencing the “TV movie” made about the Joker’s crime spree and how much she watched it, how much it inspired her. But it’s fairly obvious from her earliest scenes that she likes Arthur only as a conduit to the Joker, that the violence is what draws her rather than any aspect of him personally. While he is content to sit with a prison movie (Easter Parade naturally), she harnesses his supposed noble anarchy and starts a fire. While Lee is their primary mouthpiece, the mindless acolytes of the Joker populate the background of this movie, threatening riots and chaos if their hero isn’t acquitted -it’s altogether not a flattering portrait, especially the way they’re framed; but it is the most effective thematic beat of the movie -or it would be if not diminished by the air of rancid “gritty” malice Phillips coats it all in. Like its predecessor, it is a deeply unpleasant movie to watch.
Not quite so much so though during those musical sequences, which constitute the bulk of the Joker’s screen-time. As per the musical playbook, they connect to the themes of Arthur’s feelings, though very broadly (indeed he has very shallow mind) and at entirely random moments that interrupt all tension or drama. Thus it feels like the kind of musical that people who hate musicals think all musicals are. Mostly, the songs are standards or musical classics: “That’s Entertainment”, “Get Happy”, “For Once in My Life”, “I’ve Got the World on a String”, “That’s Life”. The most contemporary songs featured are probably The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” and The Carpenters’ “Close to You”. But for a movie that has Lady Gaga, it’s a waste to have nothing written by her herself. Gaga is the stand-out of these sequences, and of the movie itself, as much as simply performing better than Phoenix (who very much cannot sing) qualifies her. And a couple of the musical sequences, aesthetically and compositionally, are pretty decent in a vacuum -though the Joker outfit and make-up often delineates them. Few however reveal more than what can already be gleaned in the film’s firmer reality.
There, Phillips dwells a lot in bleakness. This world remains incredibly grimy, with dim lighting, muted colours, and an all-around aesthetic of cold degradation, both in the prison housing Arthur and the courtroom that are the film’s two principal settings. The courthouse scenes are a slog to sit through on just the legal discussions and references to the former movie, this choice ensures they are ugly sequences to experience as well. In that same sensibility of the first film, in depicting a world that is utterly decrepit, the movie again aspires to some level of authentic social commentary. And once again it is completely empty. A movie that shallowly critiques the carceral system while clearly disdaining the incarcerated -all prisoners beyond Arthur and Lee are seen as pitiable know-nothings, violent brutes, or idiot disciples. No interest in prison reform, just languishing in its misery and the abuse of the prison guards, led by a repugnant Brendan Gleeson. It amounts to merely bleak window dressing with barely any relevance to Arthur’s state of mind, the Joker, or the film’s apparent themes -and when it uses implied sexual assault in this matter it frankly just becomes disgusting.
I will give credit to the movie for some of the choices in its’ ending; one sequence that is such a brutal admonition of the first movie’s asshole fans that I can’t help but appreciate it a little, and a final beat that is a modestly good twist for both these movies. I can say that altogether, Joker: Folie á Deux (a title that is just too good a target for mockery) is better than the first movie, if only for its genuine convictions, its occasionally well-articulated musical numbers, and Lady Gaga saving a few scenes from being completely disposable. But it is a sequel that essentially sets out to enrage those who loved the first movie while boring the rest of us who hated it. Todd Phillips wants so badly to be a 70s auteur director, making gritty movies about life, society, and moral ambiguity; and resents having to cram those ambitions through the comic book genre. I can sympathize a little with that. But good directors know how to make the most with their limitations, and on this movie he certainly had far less than your average Marvel flick. And it turned out like this. What does that say about his priorities and his competence as a serious filmmaker?
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Comments
Post a Comment