‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ review: Someone get the hook

If all the world’s a stage, Joker: Folie à Deux stumbles into the spotlight and hits all the wrong notes.

In case you haven’t heard, one of the best movies of 2024 is about people using the art of theater to combat their mental strife. It’s a beautiful, moving piece about struggling human beings unjustly locked away by a cruel society. But when they discover the theatre and the power it has to unlock emotions they kept hidden for so long, those lost souls bloom into inspiring people rediscovering their own self worth and using it to press on for a brighter future. That movie is called Sing Sing and you should definitely watch it.

What you shouldn’t watch is a movie that uses the art of theater as a gimmick to justify an unnecessary sequel to an unnecessary comic-book adaptation meant for a studio to rake in oodles of money. You shouldn’t subject yourself to a story that teases commentary about society, mental health, and media obsession, only for it to throw its hands up at the end and say “you figure it out!” like an edgy preteen thinking he’s Kurt Vonnegut. It would probably ruin your day to see one of our best actors and one of our most versatile pop stars squandered by someone who completely misunderstands the strengths of those two performers. And if you think my jokes are bad, wait til you see what Joker: Folie à Deux has in store. Or, you could not…Sing Sing is right there.

Amateur comedian/rookie murderer Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is still in Arkham Asylum for sending Gotham City into madness and shooting Robert De Niro in the face (guess he thought The Irishman was too long). This symbol of unhinged rebellion is now just another sad face in the looney bin getting picked on by portly guards and their peppy warden (Brendan Gleeson). Until he meets (Har)Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a less violent but still anarchic inmate who’s also Arthur’s #1 fan. The two are smitten with each other, singing songs from the heart about finally meeting their soulmates and wanting to burn the world down together. Despite advice from his lawyer (Catherine Keener) to play his horrific crimes as the result of mental disability, Lee encourages Arthur to let the Joker’s unhinged persona take center stage at his impending trial. So who does Arthur want to be? And who does Arthur want to be with on the outside?

The caged bird sings

You’ve probably heard Joker: Folie à Deux being billed as a musical. If that description confuses you, it probably confused writer/director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) too because he doesn’t seem to understand how musicals work. He knows to put songs that sound like swinging show tunes (“That’s Life,” “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In”) in background of scenes and…that’s about it? Most of the singing is understated with raspy whispers from the performers shot in close-ups. Not that the drab sets surrounding them are worthy of being danced through. Even when they are, Phillips and his team shoot the barren sets in the blandest way possible without the panache you’d expect when a movie breaks into song. Even the dream sequences that tease more colorful sets and rousing energy look vacant and have empty space meant for backup dancers or spirited musicians or even some goofy streamers. ANYTHING to give an audience the impression that a musical is happening in front them.

Then again, anytime the movie starts-up another musical number makes its momentum stop dead in its tracks. There’s absolutely no reason for Folie à Deux, which is actually a courtroom drama at its core, to be a musical. The script from Phillips and Scott Silver (8 Mile) deals with the societal consequences of the first Joker and whether or not Arthur is ready to accept his role in the city he rigged to blow. That’s a fine enough premise for a legal thriller that Aaron Sorkin could punch-up with peppy dialogue, not a half-baked musical that wouldn’t be worthy of the cheapest off-Broadway tickets. Phillips does next to nothing to make Folie à Deux more creative or confrontational than the last film, however limp and basic that was. Any sense of commentary Phillips tries to get across keeps getting blocked by the movie’s pointless musical numbers, with the only highlights being mixtures of said show tunes with another haunting score by returning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Tár).

Speaking of returning factors, no jaunty tune in recorded history could lighten the abysmal mood of Folie à Deux. The first Joker was nothing more than cinematic misery porn, dour for dour’s sake. Not much has changed in Folie à Deux, with Arkham Asylum filled with creepy inmates and rotten prison guards filling every frame. More references to Arthur’s abusive childhood, condescension from those above Arthur and leering looks from those worse for wear. Outside of Arkham are miscellaneous anarchists cheering Arthur for no clear reason (being against society? breaking late night talk shows?) and members of Gotham’s criminal justice system (including a young Harvey Dent) who practically revel in trying to put Arthur in the electric chair. Phillips gives the audience no one to root for, no one that warrants any kind of investment in, and no one to give a glimmer of hope that would either challenge or develop Arthur. It’s the exact same problem from the last movie and it’s not even that Phillips is doubling down on it; he just does nothing else with it.

Tonight’s players

For all the physical strife and mental strain Phoenix endures as Arthur, many have seen him do this type of performance better and with more nuance in movies like Walk the Line, The Master, and You Were Never Really Here. That’s because Phoenix worked with filmmakers who understood how to use his talents. But, like with the “musical” aspect, Phillips completely misses what makes Phoenix so compelling. Sure he can look frail, display crushing sadness on his face, and release bits of unsettling rage at the drop of a hat. However, Phoenix truly soars as an actor with pensive melancholy, not bland misery. Phillips just wants him to mumble in close-up shots, awkwardly shout while pleading his case, and make laughing look like it hurts. Phoenix tries to dig deeper into Arthur’s processing of his crimes, but Phillips needs more time for another teeth-grinding song and more societal riot.

And if misunderstanding Phoenix’s talent was one thing, Phillips now drags Lady Gaga down into this muck. Gaga is, above all else, a performer who flourishes on the grandest scale. Even with scruffy brunette hair and a grey t-shirt in A Star is Born, her vocals make it seem like she’s growing bedazzled wings that could lap Icarus around the sun. And yet, Phillips has her tone everything down to the point where the presence of the half-horny, half-horny Harley is a non-factor. She delivers all of her dialogue with a whisper and any “jokes” meant to match Arthur’s dark humor fall flat. Her character arc is predictable, she builds little chemistry with Phoenix, and practically disappears from the movie once Arthur’s trial starts with nothing else to do. She only gets to flourish in the dream sequences, when Arthur and Lee reenact scenes from West Side Story and La La Land to match Gaga’s grander vocal performances. In the end, she might as well have been a figment of Arthur’s imagination. Or maybe the audience’s, that way they can picture her in a better movie.

The bottom line

In this day and age of audience pandering and safe-for-everyone middle management in Hollywood, it’s notable to see a movie so unabashedly rotten to its very core. Joker: Folie à Deux is somehow worse than its miserable, unoriginal, pointless predecessor. Not only for having the exact same thematic and storytelling problems as the first Joker, but also for lying to itself (and the audience) with some of the most boring, cringe-inducing musical numbers in movie history. So not only is the sequel a waste of time, but an insult to another film genre that usually inspires uplifting wonder.

And yet, for a moment, Folie à Deux almost notices itself bombing on stage. Poor Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill) is brought in to testify after witnessing Arthur violently murder a man. With tears pouring down Gary’s face, Arthur looks at this terrified soul and…puts on a Southern accent and flexes his suit coat like he’s Colonel Sanders auditioning for To Kill a Mockingbird. Gary recounts how scared he is of Arthur and how hurt he was to see someone who treated him so nicely behave like a monster. And Arthur…just keeps doing the accent. Then he rests, lets everything that just happened sit with him, and you think this is when Folie à Deux will FINALLY challenge its title character to do some real introspection…and then Phillips moves on to another boring scene. No character development and no subversion of expectations, just another uncomfortable exercise in testing your patience. That’s all, folks.

Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in theaters everywhere. You can watch the trailer here.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. You can read more reviews by Jon Winkler here.