Arthur's Not Funny Anymore
Todd Phillips’ Joker, which came out five years ago, is remembered mostly for setting off a baseless panic about violence at the theater, winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and later a Best Actor Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, and making over $1 billion worldwide at the box office at a time when audiences were rejecting most DC movies.
I'm not fond of the film. Not only did it steal most of its ideas and specific shots from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but it also depicted probably the least interesting version of The Joker. I prefer my Joker as an unpredictable master criminal, whether Jack Nicholson’s campy version or Heath Ledger’s more cerebrally evil turn; Phoenix’s take, as a twitchy serial killer with various mental illnesses and an obvious eating disorder, wasn’t compelling, a bunch of annoying affectations rather than a performance.
Phillips, at least, was ripping off different Scorsese movies rather than biting off Goodfellas, like most filmmakers do (and which he did himself, in 2016’s War Dogs.) But I’ve always been firmly anti-Joker, even if there were never any reasons to think anyone would take up arms over it. But when I heard a sequel was on the way and it was a musical with Lady Gaga, I was hopeful. It doesn’t.
Joker: Folie à Deux is a colossal mess. It isn’t a “fascinating failure” but rather an infuriating one. It’s really two movies—a courtroom procedural and a colorful musical—that don’t fit together. There’s only enough plot for about 40 minutes, so the film keeps interrupting itself for musical numbers. They don’t work either, but they’re the only visually solid element in a film that looks like crud otherwise.
If the first Joker was a knockoff of Taxi Driver, Folie à Deux seems inspired by what happened to John Hinckley after he was inspired by that movie to shoot Ronald Reagan: a trial over whether he’s sane. The other inspiration is Chicago, another musical about an accused murderer trying to leverage celebrity to beat the rap. Its structure also bears more than a passing resemblance to the Seinfeld series finale.
Folie à Deux is set immediately after the events of the first film, and Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is incarcerated at Arkham Asylum as he awaits trial for all the murders in the first film, of Robert De Niro’s talk show host, his boss at the clown-for-hire service, and the three subway taunters who he went Bernie Goetz on. At Arkham, he meets Gaga, playing the latest cinematic version of Harley Quinn. The two fall passionately in love, although it ends up just as turbulent as Joker/Harley couplings typically do.
The new film is notably light on recognizable characters from this universe, with no Batman in sight. The prosecutor is a young, pre-Two Face Harvey Dent (played by Industry’s Harry Lawtey, who looks like he’s about 22; at one point, he gets to question Ken Leung, his Industry boss). The bulk of the film is taken up by pointless trial sequences, which borrow the Seinfeld finale’s gimmick of having most of the surviving characters from the first film return as witnesses. This is dull, even before we realize the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale earlier this year did a much better job riffing on the Seinfeld ending. The songs are all recognizable pop standards, and most numbers are structured as fantasy sequences to break up the tedious trial in the tradition of Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark.
The musical numbers are inspired and look good, including one scene that’s a fun homage to Sonny and Cher. These scenes, however, are repeatedly undercut by the musical disconnect between Gaga (a musical superstar) and Phoenix (who can barely sing at all).
Phoenix is a great actor, but not here. He’s contoured his body into an unhealthy shape and does a lot of twitching and screaming, but that’s not my idea of a great performance. And Gaga, whose movie role choices have been wise up to this point, never finds the right handle on the role and won’t make anyone forget Margot Robbie’s version. Meanwhile, Brendan Gleeson's thankless role as an asylum guide only made me remember his jail stint opposite an animated bear in Paddington 2.
I like the idea of a superhero musical and taking risks with what’s become a very tired genre. But combining this version of the Joker with musical numbers wouldn’t have made sense even if the actor could sing well. And it’s never clear at any point in the two hours and 20 minutes of Joker Folie à Deux what the point is.