Joker: Folie à Deux Review - A Chaotic, Profoundly Stupid Mess

Ordinarily, when you make a sequel, you try to make it bigger and splashier than the original. Todd Phillips' "Joker: Folie à Deux" employs a less common approach of taking the theatrical antics of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) that wowed audiences in "Joker," and making them more boring and listless. It's a bold strategy; let's see if it pays off. Rather than capitalizing on the success that earned Phoenix his first Academy Award, "Joker: Folie à Deux" is something of a mess. It utterly wastes Lady Gaga in a role that uses very little of her vocal prowess and even less of her intense screen presence, and throughout the entire film, it has virtually no emotional stakes. At my screening, there was a malfunction where we only had audio and a black screen for the first five minutes before they fixed it and restarted — looking back, that may have been my favorite part of the movie.

It's been a handful of years since we've seen Fleck, and at the beginning of "Joker: Folie à Deux," he's in jail awaiting judgment for the murders he committed in the original film. His lawyer (Catherine Keener) is hoping to prevent him from actually going to trial by convincing the court that he's not guilty by way of insanity, an approach that the now meek and compliant Fleck initially goes along with. But when he meets the unstable and arson-happy Lee (Lady Gaga) while attending a music therapy class arranged by Arkham, sparks fly, and his urge to embrace the Joker once again comes to the forefront.

"Joker: Folie à Deux" is, on the whole, defined by a series of unforced errors from Todd Phillips. He makes the choice to begin the film with an extremely fun and clever Looney Tunes-esque romp between the Joker and his shadow, which only makes the rest of the movie more dreary by comparison. It's a tall order to go from that, which honestly is a much better use of the iconic character, than a dull and sluggish film that spends most of its time either in prison or in a courtroom. It was a mistake to have so much of the film revolve around a trial where it's almost impossible to care about the outcome. 

Even if you were entertained by Fleck's exploits in the original film, it's not as though you actually want him to win the trial. And this comes down to Phillips thinking that Fleck is a much more likable and sympathetic protagonist that he actually is — it's possible to feel pity for him, but not much else. "Joker: Folie à Deux" was billed as a quasi-musical, but Phillips features the least imaginative musical sequences known to man. You could do anything with Joker in a wacky fantasy musical number, and instead he chooses to give us absolutely nothing. And furthermore, why even bother hiring Lady Gaga if you're mostly going to make her whisper-sing? Does Phillips think that by handicapping her voice they can mask the fact that Joaquin Phoenix is outmatched and outgunned in the singing department?

What's especially frustrating is that there are so many points at which we can see choices that could have improved the film exponentially: leaning into the fantasy elements of the musical sequences, for example, or focusing more extensively on the relationship between Arthur and Lee. But Phillips is spectacularly uninterested in any of these. Instead, he chooses to throw narrative elements at the wall to see what sticks, luxuriating in the turgid moroseness of Arthur's life in prison as the seconds ticking by begin to feel like hours. This film is a slog to get through, and by the end you almost feel as though you yourself have been trapped in the hole for weeks.

Todd Phillips famously got some heat for the fact that "Joker" appealed disproportionately to young, disillusioned white men. And while "Joker: Folie à Deux" is a far less political movie, it's not going to help Phillips beat the incel agitprop allegations. He has an almost pathological need to spend not-insignificant amounts of screen time emasculating Fleck — at the trial, he has characters do everything but call him a virgin who can't drive. And although there are glimpses of Fleck's realization that the Joker enthusiasts rallying around him are enamored with the fantasy rather than the reality of him, there's still plenty of frankly disturbing hero worship directed his way.

The first "Joker" movie was not my cup of tea — I found its politics and its depiction of the Joker incredibly frustrating. But at least that film, for better or worse, had a point of view and a narrative voice. "Joker: Folie à Deux," by contrast, hardly feels like a movie at all. It's a collection of half-baked ideas at best, with absolutely nothing worth caring about from start to finish (except for the Looney Tunes cartoon at the beginning, which is a clear highlight). Every single plot element is underdeveloped, there are no emotional stakes within a mile of the entire production, and any analysis of its characters feels like pop psychology written in crayon. Even fans of "Joker" are unlikely to find much to redeem this chaotic, profoundly stupid mess.

"Joker: Folie à Deux" hits theaters on October 4.