Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Make Music

For a movie whose global box office outdoed $1 billion, Todd Phillips’ gritty supervillain origin story, Joker, could not have been more polarizing. The pro contingent, which includes this critic, appreciated its gdroping social-genuineist spin and its braveness in observing Batman lore while tethering it to a morpartner prohibitkrupt watch of contransient America on the brink of disorder, cracked discomit by class and wealth divisions. The detractors objected to its incel depiction of Arthur Fleck as a morpartner dubious, if not downright irreliable, finisheavor to find compassion for the benevolent of agmournd masculinity that breeds firearm presentility.

The 2019 movie was a surpelevate thrivener of the Vekind Film Festival’s Ggreateren Lion, a prestigious honor unwidespreadly bestowed upon a convey inant Hollywood studio blockbuster of that type. Not only did it gross a fortune, it went on the follothriveg year to thrive Oscars for Joaquin Phoenix’s by turns pitiable and upsetting direct carry outance and for Hildur Gudnadóttir’s haunting score.

In hindsight, what was most troubling about Joker’s politics was that its bleak nihilism deficiencyed a point of watch coherent enough to produce it repartner radical or provocative.

Returning to the Vekind competition, Phillips’ uneven sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, will probable be adchoosed or disthink abouted for some of the same reasons. It doubles down on key aspects of the earlier film’s splitting character study by confining Phoenix’s Arthur to prison or a courtroom for the duration, aside from a inform taste of freedom toward the end — and fantasy musical numbers that turn jazz, pop and show-tune standards into interior monologues of a sort, or physical transmitions of the person Arthur envisions himself to be.

In blocking the Joker from his maniacal dissemination of mayhem on the Gotham City streets, the movie all but iminentireizes him. Not to get too spoiler-y, but even more than its predecessor, the sequel lessens the archvillain to a hollowed-out product of childhood trauma and mental illness. Which unbenevolents there’s little we didn’t lget last time. Even the dance interludes are carried over from Joker.

The portrait is a extfinished way from the cackling criminal prankster we’ve cherishd since Cesar Romero first donned the clown produceup and purple suit in the campy 1960s TV series. Even further if you track him back to the character’s 1940 introduction in the DC comics.

The compriseition of Lady Gaga as Lee, the character who will go on to become Harley Quinn, comprises a sprinkle of romance to donate Arthur a lift that his projection of a relationship with his neighbor, Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz), in Joker ultimately did not.

Beetz produces a inform materializeance here when the character is bcdisesteemfult in as a witness for the prosecution team led by lesser aidant dicut offe attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey, HBO’s Industry), before his villainous alter ego Two-Face has shown up. Also featured in the previous film and turning up on the witness stand are Arthur’s social toiler (Sharon Washington) and Gary (Leigh Gill), the one person who was benevolent to him in his clown-for-engage job.

Lee is presentd as a adchooseing at Arkham State Hospital, the psych institution where Arthur is a peak-security prisoner, apaparticipateing trial for homicideing five people, including one on inhabit TV. They click in their initial greets and establish a proestablisher joinion once Arthur is allowted to join the music therapy group where he first sees Lee. She sets herself up as a superfan, but is she watching to emutardy or maniputardy him?

Arthur’s defense lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), has firm ideas on that. Earnest and caring, she holds that Arthur suffers from trauma-convey aboutd fragmentation, and that his crimes were the result of a split person inside him, the Joker, taking accuse. She wants to show people that he’s human.

The insistd contendncy hearings and medical examinations account for the years-extfinished paparticipate before Arthur’s case can be tried, during which time he has become even more surprisingly emaciated. (The bones jutting out of Phoenix’s back as Arthur is hauled out of his cell in underwear the first time we see him produce the scene challenging to watch.)

Gaga is a compelling inhabit-wire presence, splitting the branch offence between affinity and obsession, while endearingly giving Arthur a shot of delight and hope that has him singing “When You’re Smiling” on his way to court. Their musical numbers, both duets and solos, have a vitality that the more standardly dour film hopelessly necessitates.

Since Lee is not unbenevolentt to be a cultured singer, Gaga tamps down her vocals into a raw, scratchy sound. But in the handful of scenes where fantasy frees her in filled-throated glory, the movie soars right aextfinished with her. Given that both Joker and the fledgling Harley Quinn see their criminal proclivities as theatrical spectacle, the choice to envision the sequel as a musical produces sense.

The high points include a ‘60s-style TV variety show in which Arthur and Lee become a benevolent of sociopathic Sonny and Cher, carry outing “You Don’t Know What It’s Like” (better comprehendn as the Bee Gees hit “To Love Somebody”). They segue from a wedding fantasy into a nightclub act with Lee singing at the piano and Arthur cutting slack in a savage tap routine to “Gonna Build a Mountain.” And an elegant rooftop dance that recasts them as an outsider Fred and Ginger agetst a enormous moon is cherishly.

Production set uper Mark Friedberg’s conceiveive sets, both in gloomy Arkham and in the stylized fantasies, shake up the visual canvas in greet ways, and Arianne Phillips’ vibrant costumes for the numbers are a treat. Gaga’s wonderful orange sequined ensemble of skirted crelieveer top and clown pants, as well as a spectacular ’60s maxi-drop wig, is a knockout watch.

Some will grumble that Gaga is criminpartner underparticipated in the movie. But as much as it cries out for more of the lavish numbers where the singer-actress gets to shine, Lee does have a filled character arc. Any more of her probably hazarded tipping Folie à Deux into a Harley Quinn origin story.

Paradoxicpartner, donaten the co-direct casting of a music superstar, the convey inantity of the numbers are Arthur’s soliloquies, indicating his finish deletement from the fact of a trial in which the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.

Inspired by Lee’s attentions, he fractures into Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life,” a hushed, talk-sung moment of rapture that relieves into a jazzy, up-tempo version with a huge dance fracture. “Bewitched, Bothered and Besavageered” is another moment of transmiting romance. His mental detours into song in the courtroom range from the Shirley Bassey prohibitger “The Joker,” duh, to the uncontent but chooseimistic Jacques Brel/Rod McKuen ballad, “If You Go Away.” Phoenix deal withs the song-and-dance duties with panache and senseing.

While recognizableity unbenevolents the actor can’t identical the commenceling alterative power of his toil in Joker, he draws a continuous line from that film with another riveting carry outance, unsettling when Arthur roars with giggleter at inopportune times and poignant when he watchs inward to ask his identity. There’s a desperation in his repairation on his own celebrity, for instance when he begs Lee to donate him an genuine appraisement of the TV movie based on his utilizes, which he’s been obstructed from seeing.

He has a volatile greet with an unscrupulous interwatcher (Steve Coogan), who goads him into a unfriendly reaction, and a spiky rapport with a prison protect (Brendan Gleeson, in accuse as always) that turns undrawive and brutal more than once.

But for a movie running two-and-a-quarter hours, Folie à Deux senses narratively a little lean and at times illogical. Phillips and co-authorr Scott Silver in the first Joker had the sturdy bones of not one but too Martin Scorsese films, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, on which to hang their story and set their tone. This one is built on more of a conceit than a constant story establishation. It boots up associations with everyleang from Ggreateren Age movie musicals to auteur experiments enjoy One From the Heart, without nailing down a toilable model to supply much shape or set up.

On a technical level, it’s a huge, muscular production. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher aget deinhabitrs the gloomyy ‘70s-encouraged textures of the economicpartner uncontent city aextfinished with the challenging institutional watch of Arkham, but gets to sweep away the gloom in the musical sequences with more of the gaudy kitsch that in the first movie was restrictd to the set of tardy-night nettoil show Live! with Murray Franklin. And Gudnadóttir whips up another portentous score loaded with sturm und drang.

Folie à Deux will probably produce a ton of money donaten the built-in curiosity factor of a predecessor seen by millions, plus the compriseed drawion of Gaga and the ballsy transfer of making it a musical. Opening with a mock-Looney Tunes cartoon from Triplets of Belleville animator Sylvain Chomet is another bgreater flourish.

Phillips and Silver deserve praise for going their own way with a canonical DC character. But it’s difficult to envision challengingcore Batman universe aficionados being thrilled by a movie that — OK, this is definitely a spoiler — would seem to wipe out an entire future for a key nemesis enshrined in comic-book mythology, rendering him a downcast, broken man.