Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)

One of the most frustrating aspects of the reaction to Todd Phillips' Joker was how many people didn't understand it was a film about a villain. This should have been obvious from the fact that the character is arguably one of pop culture's most famous villains (not anti-hero) who has never been redeemed in any of the literature or media. He is and always has been a "bad guy" and the 2019 film, while nuanced and artfully told, sets out that he is the villain. It explores how he sees himself as hero/victim and how many idealize him as such, but that he remains wrong and evil no matter how he tries to justify his behaviour. In the age of incels and proud boys, an examination of this phenomenon is timely and relevant. Similarly to how many people misunderstand Fight Club, many audiences took it as a glorification. 

So along comes Folie à Deux and we find Phillips is reckoning with that reaction. Arthur Fleck is on trial for what happened in the first film and this sequel is a process of coming to terms with admitting his villainy. It crescendos to a confession, and a real one, where he accepts responsibility for his actions. But the film doesn't let him off the hook by granting him absolution. Instead he falls victim to all the cruelty and harm that he has wrought, like an old fashioned morality play. He doesn't get the girl. He is discredited. He is replaced (in what is one of the films most genius moments) by someone who can potentially do his brand of evil even better.  He gets his just desserts and it isn't even tragic. Again, like how the first film was misunderstood, I worry people will attempt to see this as a redemption arc despite none of that making any sense. 

The film again uses the DC characters as a means of exploring difficult and disturbing real world scenarios. Harley here, played quite masterfully and subtly by Gaga, isn't the comic book version of the character. She represents the very real phenomenon of fans of mass murderers, manifested in those (often) women who love famous killers and attempt to have relationships with them. Once he has owned up to just how awful he really is, she abandons him. In the first film Arthur imagined a love relationship out of thin air (this film confirms that). Here he does the same only this time there is a real person there acting along with him until he no longer serves her purposes. The film is harsh on men like Arthur and their prospects for love. It is never real. Even his fan base only want him for what he can offer them and will discard him once he's of no use. 

Phillips continues his visual approach from his first film to this, an approach I truly appreciate. He is commenting on the bleakness of a certain world view and his film captures a visual and audible language of bleakness. None of this is argued to be desirable. In fact Folie à Deux is more explicit in this which I why I think the response has been more negative. There was a beautiful ambiguity in the first film that many latched on to (it was also a divisive film if you remember) and left many angry. This film leaves us with less ambiguity and perhaps that is why more are rejecting it as they want to be able to justify certain ideas the film is outright rejecting. 

Another aspect that I loved that I think many are reacting negatively to is that it is a musical. It doesn't lean as heavily into the musical tropes as I might have thought, but it does what a good musical does, intersperses songs that advance development of the characters and expresses their inner monologues. As a jukebox musical (with one new song written by Gaga) it pulls songs that we have a relationship with and forces us to experience them in new ways, often upsetting ways, due to how they are used. I felt this one of the most impressive aspects of the film. But I know musicals by definition are divisive. The amount of people how just refuse to enjoy musicals outright is quite high. 

I see Folie à Deux as Phillips revisiting his very successful previous work and deepening it. I think that's perhaps not what audiences want. Typically we want sequels to be more of the same. And when I say "we" I don't mean me in that. I much prefer a sequel which forces us to rethink what we thought and experience something new. Folie à Deux is very much that. 

One more spoiler comment. The film heavily implies that the inmate who kills Arthur is some sort of Joker figure as well, perhaps who will take over the role. We are only given small glimpses of him before but he invokes the Cameron Monaghan or even Heath Ledger takes on the character. I like this for a few reasons, first being the comics' trend of never defining who Joker truly is and not limiting him to being one person. But also the idea that bad political ideas don't die when horrible figures die, they get passed along and picked up by someone new who perhaps could do even worse with it. I found the ending chilling in a number of ways. 

Joker: Folie à Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Sharon Washington, Bill Smitrovitch, Connor Storrie

Director: Todd Phillips

Writers: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips