Cinema from the Spectrum

I think the first time I saw Joker, I remember thinking that it felt more like the material to make something truly transcendent with its origins as a comic book film, but ultimately it was never always successful. Most of that has far more to do with the fact that Joker makes it evident which films it’s ripping from to create the grungy aesthetic for Todd Phillips’s version of Gotham City, which comes primarily from the films of Martin Scorsese – namely Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. It’s not hard to see why Joker was so widely embraced, especially as the Joker himself remains one of the most famous villains of pop culture. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Joker: Folie à Deux, which takes one massive swing and misses.

Following up from the events of Joker, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is now incarcerated at Arkham State Hospital, routinely putting up with systemic abuse from the guards there. Struggling to juggle between the personas of himself as Arthur Fleck and as the Joker, he ends up meeting Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a fellow patient who confides in him and with whom he falls in love. Of course, things start to brighten for Arthur in that moment, as he’s also being called to court for the events that had transpired in the first film. This isn’t even close to covering the genres that Todd Phillips is aiming to mold Joker: Folie à Deux from within, but it also makes clear the evident cracks in its foundation.

Todd Phillips always envisioned his own take on the origin story of the Joker to be a standalone feature separate from any other pre-existing franchise continuity. But Joker also was intended to be a single feature, for it felt as if it was presenting a completed arc through its exploration of Arthur Fleck’s inevitable downfall to the embracing of the Joker moniker. So it only leaves Joker: Folie à Deux with absolutely nothing left to explore out of Arthur Fleck, other than reckoning with the image that he’d left behind as the Joker. Alas, Fleck is no icon of the impoverished, he is deeply pathetic and this film embraces his own fatalism in all the worst possible ways.

Unlike the first film, which was made for under $100 million, the budget for Joker: Folie à Deux has more than doubled into an estimated $190-200 million. But oddly enough, it seems as if the canvas that Phillips is painting is a much smaller one in Joker: Folie à Deux. Instead, opting for an approach that explores the damaged psyche of Arthur Fleck, the film opts for an approach akin to a jukebox musical – one that fittingly enough, starts with an animated introduction riffing on the Looney Tunes cartoons. But these never feel properly woven into the story at that, only wasting away some very inventive production design that could easily have created a much bigger scope than Joker.

On paper, I think that the idea of creating a picture of the Joker renouncing his own identity as a symbol of resistance is interesting. It’s interesting enough, given the sort of fandom within which the film has acquired. But even in its efforts to renounce that fandom, it seems that Phillips has stripped Arthur Fleck down to become a shell of what made himself so interesting for us in the first film – whose own perspective on mental illness was incredibly ableist. The inclusion of musical numbers feels like a hindrance, because Fleck and Quinzel are not singing their own songs, and only gives the film a greater feeling of bloat more than ever.

It’s a shame too, because there’s at least some good to be found in how Todd Phillips wanted to distance himself from the same comic book roots which fans of the first Joker film would have embraced with open arms in 2019. Joaquin Phoenix is trying his best to recapture what made Arthur Fleck a compelling figure in our own minds, but he’s left with material that reduces everything that made him so interesting to nothing. Lady Gaga also never really feels as prominent as you’d be led to believe either. Even while the first Joker film just feels like it’s ripping its own ramblings straight from the films of Martin Scorsese, the assertions felt present – and in Joker: Folie à Deux, they are not.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via Warner Bros. Discovery.

Directed by Todd Phillips
Screenplay by Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, from characters created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane
Produced by Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joseph Garner
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beets, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill
Premiere Date: September 4, 2024 (Venice)
Running Time: 138 minutes