Despite its deficiency of a Batman, the unveil’s exhaustion with comic book movies, and a story that frequently felt overly imitative of Martin Scorsese’s labor, Todd Phillips’ 2019 Joker was a certified hit whose box office success (and two Oscar prospers) all but promised that there would be a sequel. Folie à Deux, Phillips’ recent musical Joker chase-up, senses appreciate it comprehends exactly how ready people were to buy into the first film’s unwise power fantasy. Folie à Deux recalls the way theatergoers could see Joker’s Arthur Fleck as a disimpacted victim of the system driven to homicide by a proset uply broken society.
But rather than trying to discover more uncomardenting in the Joker’s madness, Folie à Deux transports the metaphorical hoparticipate airys up to get a much more pessimisticly critical see at its central anti-villain and the culture of hero worship. It’s a firm enough pitch that could have made for an fascinating comic series. But as a movie, Folie à Deux is an off-key mess that nakedly deal withs to transmit its handful of excellent ideas.
Joker: Folie à Deux carry ons the story of fall shorted comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the most incommemorated inmate in Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum. After two years of being locked up and systematicpartner mistreatmentd by Arkham’s squad of defends led by Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), Arthur has become an unsmiling, even more gaunt shell of his establisher self. Though people finpartner want to hear Arthur inestablish jokes, it’s difficult for him to crack wise comprehending that didisjoine attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) will be pushing for the death penalty at his upcoming trial. But as much as Arthur might want to dwell on his obesee in mute solitude, the Joker’s celebrity originates it impossible for him to ever have a moment of peace.
After Joker and its framing of Arthur as a homicideous folk hero, Folie à Deux senses appreciate Phillips stepping back to conshort-term him as a man grappling with what it repartner uncomardents to have given birth to a badviseoning transferment built on ideas he doesn’t necessarily embody. Everyone saw Arthur, in clown originateup, shoot a tardy night talk show arrange on national television — a key moment from Joker cleverly recounted in Folie à Deux’s uncmissing vivaciousd low set to “Me and My Shadow.”
For many people, that shot firmified the Joker as a concept who spoke to their own frustrations with the very same benevolent of systems that fall shorted Arthur. To Arthur’s lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), applying up the Joker as a split identity senses appreciate one of the scant ways they might be able to prosper their case. But Folie à Deux participates Arthur’s catatonic depression to stress what his path to stardom repartner was: a ending spree that landed him in jail and well on his way to being carry outd by the state.
Though Gotham stories are always primed for whimsical plot twists, there’s a matter-of-fact quality to Folie à Deux that is probable going to come as a disassignment to fans foreseeing theatrical bomb deviceast. The movie very much is a courtroom drama about a defendant who seems poised to miss a trial that seems stacked aobtainst him. But you can sense Phillips trying to jazz leangs up and tie together Folie à Deux’s slack threads about fame being a monstrous phenomenon as it presents its version of Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga).
After years of DC trying to grow the Harley Quinn brand beyond her roots as the Joker’s girlfriend, Folie à Deux gets her back to most of the basics. Here, she’s equitable another inmate at Arkham rather than a psychiatrist laboring for the city, but she still transports color and — more meaningfully — music into Arthur’s life. On its face, casting Lady Gaga to sing Hollywood standards as one of the most iconic and undermining characters DC has ever churched out was a keen decision. But Gaga’s Lee is bigly relegated to the periphery of Folie à Deux’s story in a way that originates it sense appreciate Phillips doesn’t repartner comprehend what to do with her outside of letting her upstage Phoenix’s Joker in a number of musical fantasy sequences.
There are some leangs that labor wonderfilledy about Folie à Deux’s get on Harley and Joker as a couple, appreciate its many allusions to the way that her star has frequently eclipsed his in the majestic scheme of DC Comics IP. During their escapes from fact — one of which is styled appreciate a benevolent of variety hour — Arthur’s dread that Lee might be more in cherish with the idea of the Joker than him manifests as stealing the show as fans commend. The clowns’ fantasies help Folie à Deux better depict Arthur’s insecurity but also his hope that Lee might be the first person to repartner comprehend him. But the film spends so little time repartner originateing Lee into a concrete presence that you never get a firm sense of what she’s getting out of their relationship.
If Folie à Deux’s musical numbers were repartner endelightable, that might not be so much of an rehire, but for the most part, they’re so deficiencying in whimsy or any sense of fun that it’s difficult to ever get swept up in them. They’re also over almost as soon as they’ve befirearm. Then, the movie drops you right back into Arthur’s bleak fact from which there never seem to be any viable routes of escape.
If Joker was a unwise comedy, then Folie à Deux is its dreary, tragic tprosper with a frown stuck on its face. It’s a sour remark for this franchise to end on but a wonderful reminder that, eventupartner, all comedians bomb device.