As the philosopher Michael Philip Jagger stated, one can’t always get what one wants, but sometimes one gets what they need. In the decades since that profundity was proposed, the world has done its best to belie the sentiment, shedding bit by byte the transmissive characteristic of mass culture to asymptotically approach a more personal, more self-curated form fed to the viewer in a mode that they believe they have helped shape. With the rise of an increasingly vocal fandom with mass communication at their literal fingertips, certain orthodoxies beyond any creative creator’s control are entrenched by the consumers of media, whereby even fictional characters must conform to expectations of a vocal audience rather than the ideas or ideals of the people telling these stories. Even Joker stories.
At its best, Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his Venice-winning Joker looks directly into the abyss of rabid fandom, where any reality is divorced in favor of the very idea of what the person is rather than what they actually are. In Folie à Deux, fantasy trumps reality, the stories that are filtered through imagination more impactful than the stories that are actualized, and delusions carry the day. On one hand it’s a powerful indictment of its own audience as they crave seeing a more maniacal Joker giggling with sociopathic glee. On the other, it’s almost an apologia from the filmmakers for even telling the story in the first place.
And so Joker: Folie à Deux has even more of a split personality than its subject is willing to testify to, a broad mix of tones and situations that only sometimes remembers this is meant to be blockbuster entertainment. Sure, there’s sweeping moments where things become elevated, but for the most part it’s a claustrophobic, small screen-scale imprisonment of this character and his demons told on the giant IMAX canvas. For those that want to truly understand what makes these supposedly dimensionalized characters tick, you’re in for a 138 minutes of psychological double talk, self-parodying courtroom antics, and libidinous manipulation by a mendacious groupie until, literally, the mask is wiped clean.
Oh, and it’s a musical. Sort of.
Yes, there are musical moments, mostly showtunes from classic Hollywood sung at moments of psychological strife. If the goal of the classic musical is to burst into song when words alone cannot sufficiently express emotion, here in Folie it’s because of thoughts that cannot be stated coherently, whether in the bowels of Arkham or the staid walls of Gotham’s courtroom. For all of Arthur Fleck’s (Joaquin Phoenix) foibles, it’s the expression of his ultimate Id, the resplendently festooned Joker, that makes the world finally notice.
Mental medication that has softened Fleck’s impulses, made him into just another drone wandering the halls of the asylum, his life is grey and miserable, carrying his own waste in the halls with Sisyphean repetition. When a burly guard (Brendan Gleason) takes Fleck to meet his kindly yet ineffective lawyer (Catherine Keener), the former jokester spots a woman singing as part of a choir (Lady Gaga). Sneaking out while the ensemble sings, she stares into the eyes of a multiple murderer made famous by a TV movie that may or may not be any good, points her fingers to her temple making the shape of a gun, and pulls the virtual trigger.
From here we witness the start/stop connection between Fleck and Harleen Quinzel, a tale already told countless times on print and several times on the big screen. But here, in Phillip’s telling, Ms. Quinn isn’t a mirrored version of Joker, nor is she simply a sycophantic follower. For if there’s any (self)committed sociopath in the film it proves to be her, and it is her personal disappointment in the unmasking of the object of her obsession that takes the film to its darkest if most anti-cathartic end.
The anti-antihero nature of many of the film’s most contradictory implications are ouroborosian in their outlook, the narrative snake at times willingly consuming its tale for the sake of dismantling any notion of mythic greatness. This is a sequel that literally puts on trial not simply its protagonist, but the very storyline that preceded it, making mockery of the simplistic readings that it engendered, while at the same time engaging in the kind of hoarish courtroom antics that make the musical sequences feel almost vérité in stylistic contrast.
Casting Lady Gaga obviously elevates things any time there’s singing to be done, yet even here she attenuates between a croaky reticence and gently sung cadences, rarely bursting into full-throated diva-mode even during Fleck’s delusionary imaginings. Phoenix has a fine enough upper register, but he struggles to be tuneful in his regular range, making moments meant to be escapist continue to feel all that more awkward or half-baked. More Karaoke-at-a-bar competent than the honey-like vocals of classic numbers from the golden age of Hollywood that are reinterpreted here, the musical asides provide welcome respites in scattershot form, a bit of surreal yet genuine hope in an otherwise deeply nihilistic narrative.
There’s one particular delusion, taking on a Sonny and Cher-like vibe, that evokes the last film’s schlocky, boob-tube aesthetic of Murray Franklin’s show. Here they sing that the two are “Gonna build a mountain from a little hill,” a gospel infused version of a song that first appeared in the fittingly named The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. For those that care to do the digging there’s plenty to be derived from how the misplacement of songs from their former roots is upended from their original meanings to fit with Fleck’s meanderings (“Cummon get happy” another more obvious recontextualization), but it’s with this mountain track that the true bleakness creeps in.
For with this particular performance, Quinn in a golden flowing smock, Fleck bedecked in Joker regalia, the cracks even in dream begin to appear. Quinn turns her back, singing to the audience and for herself rather than expressing love to him. Dismayed, he confronts her, and even in this dream world she pulls out a gun and gutshoots him. Shocked that his acts of violence have been turned against him, the Joker seems impotent when realizing that forces well outside his own control could be unleashed in reciprocation, that it’s far more fun to be inflicting than to be inflicted upon.
And so, like in this song, Fleck builds daydreams as much as he builds up the Joker, and we learn, crushingly to some, that the same man is both victim and victimizer, no need for convenient splitting apart in both psychological and legally relevant ways to see that within one can lay paradoxes of truly horrific proportions. For as Fleck demonstrates we may contain multitudes, but that in turn is a disappointment for those who want the undistilled rage or manic joy without the dour facts that underpin the quotidian gormlessness of Fleck’s inconvenient existence.
This is a film that takes the joyful sentiment of “That’s Entertainment” from The Band Wagon and here wields it like a dagger, twists a Motown melody “For Once in My Life” or the David/Bacharach classic “What the World Needs Now is Love” to show that love is a lie, little more than mere obsession. Things do not “Merrily roll along,” and “Me and My Shadow” both alludes to the slyly constructed WB Cartoon intro, but also the Jekyll/Hyde legal strategy that the film obliterates scene by scene, refusing the simplicity of bifurcation while realizing that one must inconveniently take in the whole rather than the constituent part.
And so, Phillips’ film explores the folly of fandom, challenging very notions about what audiences look to be engaged by, and the very harsh rebuttal that the more we wish to dive underneath the surface, the more that those details provide disgust and dismissal rather than deeper connection. Yet sprinkled throughout are other threads for fans to follow, from the defacing of young attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey), to the machinations of one inmate barely captured in the final scene’s background bokeh, as strong a reminder as any that the myth inevitably outlives the man.
It’s here that this bleak critique can be elevated further, if one wishes, from the pages of the comic book to politics or religion. We witness stories about stories overwhelm any original narrative, find followers determining their own purity tests for reemphasizing their own understanding of that which they believe or follow. The fantasy, yet again, overwhelms the actuality, making the real all that more disposable and replaceable.
This is an unnecessary sequel about unnecessary sequels and a litigation of its previous success, diving deeply into the very notion of wanting to know more about that which when finally understood is seen to be more pathetic and pedantic than profound. Phoenix is fine, Gaga is great, but the entire exercise feels anything but enjoyable. Yet it’s also bold in its breadth, taking seriously the intoxicating draw of nihilism and stripping it bare.
Joker: Folie à Deux a boldly unconventional blockbuster that feels at once as disposable as any, yet has these tiny, almost irritating threads that when pulled upon reveal method to the madness. Maybe audiences don’t need to be scolded for their interests, nor chastised for helping make possible this $200 million+ excoriation of interest in these type of stories. But maybe, perhaps uncomfortably, this is a reversion of sorts, where we’re once again being given not what we want, but what we need.
In this day and age, it seems, that’s entertainment.
Director: Todd Phillips
Writer: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson, Harry Lawtey
Release Date: Oct. 4, 2024
Jason Gorber is a Toronto based film Critic and Journalist, Editor-in-Chief at That Shelf, the movie critic for CBC’s Metro Morning, and others. He is a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association and voter for the Critics Choice Awards Association. He also knows for a fact that CASINO is Scorsese’s masterpiece, and has a cat named Zissou.