Joker: Folie a Deux

By Joanna Langfield

The most audacious big studio movie in years had me cheering its refusal to color between the lines. Until it didn’t.

It’s not the job of a critic to factor in the business of making a movie when looking at the final result. But oh, to have been a fly on the wall of the meeting where filmmaker Todd Phillips might have pitched his follow up to his hugely popular Joker as “well, it’s a courtroom drama, but with a love story and, hey, it’s a musical! But even though we’ll use songs that were popular back in the 1960’s, this won’t be your grandfather’s kind of musical. Trust me.”

That’s right. It’s a musical. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But just referencing hits that were popular before most of the contemporary audience was born, and then having Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix perform them like amateurs is certainly a choice. Maybe interesting artistically, but undoubtedly will turn off the legion fans who would expect something far more polished. And even those of us who root for the chancy can’t help but recognize the dullness of the storyline, expected stuff that’s never made more compelling, as hard as Gaga and Phoenix may try. And try they do, but their characters are thinner than thin, making anyone paying attention wonder why the self-aggrandizing Harley Quinn would bother with Arthur Fleck at all. Because in this chapter, he comes across as kind of a milquetoast.

I’m always happy to see Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener show up, even when they aren’t given much to play with here. And the ongoing look at what defines entertainment is a theme I appreciate. But that, too, is given short shrift. Overall, this Folie feels like a folly, where the creators gave up halfway through trying to do something unique and then settled for something far, far less.