[This story contains spoilers for Joker: Folie a Deux.]

Is anybody on the market laughing? It appears only a few are, given the dismal reception to Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie a Deux, the follow-up to his $1 billion-it, Joker (2019), which was nominated for 11 Oscars and received finest actor and finest unique Rating. A sequel with Phoenix reprising his position as Joker/Arthur Fleck, and Woman Gaga as Harley Quinn appeared like considered one of Hollywood’s most secure bets this 12 months, regardless of Joker not organising a story to be continued.

So, what offers?

The sequel hasn’t merely been met with disappointment, however a way of betrayal from some followers of the primary. There are definitely points upon which your mileage might range: the movie is at instances sluggish, the jukebox tunes are largely mid-20^th century tracks with a number of reprises, and Phillips demonstrates a scarcity of dedication to cinematic musicals (and an sudden dedication to ’70s selection reveals).

But it surely appears a lot of that sense of betrayal, and anger comes from the movie’s ending.

There may be, after all, no proper or improper strategy to really feel about it, or the movie as a complete. What I’m providing right here isn’t a protection of Joker: Folie a Deux, however a perspective by means of which to contemplate the movie, nonetheless chances are you’ll land on it. And with that comes a method to contextualize the ending, which in my view is the movie’s best second. *Crickets.* Is that this factor on?

On the finish of the movie, Arthur Fleck renounces his Joker persona to the court docket, recognizing that he’s not some rallying cry, solely a person who knew with full consciousness what he was doing. He was solely a no person who wished to be any individual, who wished to be cherished. This assertion causes an uproar amongst his followers and Lee turns her again on him, dissolving their relationship. She wished Joker, not Fleck. Again at Arkham, Fleck sits, not laughing, not joking, solely pondering of the love he discovered and misplaced, when one of many guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), tells Fleck he has a customer and leads him out to the corridor to the reception space.

Fleck is stopped by a fellow inmate, one we’ve seen all through the movie, by no means talking, solely watching Fleck, and the reactions he will get from the opposite inmates and the residents at his televised trial, with resolute seriousness. The inmate tells Fleck a joke, the punchline being the identical one Joker gave to Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) within the first movie: “You get what you fuckin deserve.” The inmate then stabs Fleck a number of instances within the stomach. Whereas Fleck bleeds out on the asylum flooring, the inmate sits within the background, out of focus, making an attempt on quite a lot of laughs earlier than carving a Glasglow smile into his face with the blade he used to kill Fleck. The inmate settles on the proper giggle: deep, chilly, and clogged with blood, simply as Arthur Fleck dies. A Joker dies and the Joker is born.

To get to the guts of the matter regarding this alleged viewers betrayal, we should shuffle the deck to get again to the opening play. After the discharge of the primary movie, I talked about Joker’s uneasy reliance on the comics. Regardless of Phillips’ makes an attempt to sound above the style and make, what he known as “an actual film” and never a (shudders) comedian e book film, the diretcor is a little bit of a Joker himself. As an alternative of drawing consideration to comedian e book influences, Phillips positioned the movie as a personality examine within the shadow of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982), which it’s. However it’s also within the shadow of The Killing Joke and a number of Joker tales instructed throughout numerous mediums, as a result of if it wasn’t, if it weren’t a “comedian e book film” audiences wouldn’t have latched onto the movie like they did, and as they’d beforehand finished with Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Darkish Knight (2008) or Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989).

Earlier than Joker opened 5 years in the past, the media raised considerations {that a} capturing would possibly occur through the opening evening, similarly to the 2012 tragedy in Aurora, Colorado through the opening evening of The Darkish Knight Rises. Amid these considerations, the concept Joker was courting incels was seized upon by information shops eager to have a possible controversy to put in writing about. Fortunately no violence happened, however the notion of Joker as an incel film remained, to the purpose the place some are calling Phillips’ sequel a center finger to that crowd and comedian e book followers.

Now, I don’t discover myself within the incel realm of social media and to not say “couldn’t be me,” however yeah, it really couldn’t be me. However I do assume this entire connection of the movie with incels is basically overblown. In spite of everything, a film powered by incels doesn’t make $1 billion and garner Oscar nominations, and it definitely doesn’t account for the destructive important and viewers polling for Joker: Folie a Deux. However I do assume that there have been a not insignificant variety of folks, from each stroll of life, who noticed Arthur Fleck as a heroic determine, one who took the rich and the damaged welfare and social providers techniques to activity.

Some opinions on the time accused the movie of glorifying violence and ending with Joker as triumphant, a damaged man healed by breaking the system. After all, following a villainous protagonist will not be an endorsement for audiences to border their values round mentioned villainy.

But, as a result of the Joker was mentally ailing, and abused, some felt that there wasn’t sufficient inside the character to obviously outline him as villainous and that the movie created a slippery slope. Round this similar time, there emerged a preferred dialog relating to Batman and the argument that he used his wealth to beat up the mentally ailing as an alternative of utilizing these assets to assist change the infrastructure of Gotham.

After all, learn sufficient Batman comics and also you’ll discover that a lot of Bruce Wayne’s assets do go in direction of that change, and there’s a purpose why these characters are set in a fictional world non-subject to all of our personal guidelines and sociopolitical panorama. However the criticism of Batman was an indication of the instances, and months following the discharge of Joker, comedian e book author James Tynion IV took the reins of the Batman title and started a year-long story that noticed Bruce Wayne lose all of his wealth within the aftermath of The Joker Struggle. There was one thing within the air, little question created by nervousness over a person who lived in a golden tower possessing the best workplace within the land and sucking the life out of techniques folks had come to depend on.

Arthur Fleck’s grievances are largely petty and private. He might forged a watch in direction of the poor and downtrodden, however Arthur doesn’t care about them, or do something to learn them. It’s not so dissimilar to a filmmaker crafting a movie about how energy constructions abuse these with out the facility to combat it, just for that filmmaker to be anti-union. Snare drums, please! On the finish of the movie, Fleck, locked in Arkham Asylum begins laughing. His therapist asks him what’s so humorous and Fleck says, “You wouldn’t get it.” The impoverished residents of Gotham didn’t get it once they chanted for him and positioned him as their savior, and possibly among the viewers didn’t get it both. So, what’s the joke? Effectively, Joker was the set-up, and Joker: Folie a Deux is the punchline.

Joker: Folie a Deux begins with an animated quick, within the fashion of the previous Looney Tunes cartoon, that sees Joker struggling in opposition to his shadow, who not solely tries to steal the highlight from him, dressing up in his garments, doing his routine, however finally frames him for the murders he dedicated, leaving the shadow free to play Joker, and the person, Fleck, crushed right into a bloody pulp. It’s a reasonably chilling cartoon, however greater than that, it lays out the whole film proper there.

Once we’re reintroduced to Fleck, he’s a shell of a person, awaiting trial for the 5 murders he dedicated within the earlier movie. He’s closely medicated, obedient, and hasn’t instructed a joke in months. Surrounded by his fellow inmates at Arkham, he’s again to being a no person inside these partitions. That modifications when he meets Lee Quinzel, an inmate in a decrease safety wing of the hospital. Fleck shortly falls for Lee, and he or she encourages him to giggle once more, to change into Joker once more and tells him that he was an inspiration to her, a poor child like him who grew up in the identical neighborhood with an abusive father and an emotionally indifferent mom. Concurrently, Fleck’s lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) works with him to promote a story to the jury that Joker was a secondary persona, that he blacked out whereas committing the crimes of the earlier movies and has no recollection of them, all of this a results of the abuse he suffered as a baby and his mom’s loss of life. It’s a strong alibi, besides it’s not a real one. However then neither is Lee’s story.

The movie has a real curiosity in parasocial relationships and individuals who insert themselves into true crime narratives as a strategy to be seen or really feel some type of that means. Pascal Plante’s French-Canadian horror-thriller, Purple Rooms, was launched just a few weeks in the past and tackles this very topic. That movie, and Ryan Murphy’s sensationalized Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story weighed on my thoughts as I watched Gaga’s manipulative flip as Lee. As we come to seek out out, Lee is from a rich household on the Higher West Aspect, her father is a non-abusive physician, and he or she completed grad college with a level in psychiatry. She checked herself into Arkham to satisfy the Joker after which checks herself out as soon as she has him on a hook and might management the media narrative surrounding him, constructing him up as an excellent prison mastermind.

The place the Harleen Quinzel of the comics initially did need to deal with the Joker, earlier than being manipulated by him, on this movie, Lee meets Joker when he’s, maybe not cured, however docile, after which manipulates him, has intercourse with him, and fakes a being pregnant in order that he’s hers to mildew into embracing Joker as soon as extra. It’s an fascinating reversal, and Gaga performs that cruelty so effectively, her efficiency echoing the erotic thrillers of the late ’80s and ’90s like Deadly Attraction (1987), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and Disclosure (1994). Lee is possessed with a sure type of delusion that solely the rich with an excessive amount of money and time discover themselves in. She needs to dwell out the fantasy and play home with Joker. But, all of the whereas she is aware of that it’s a fantasy and identical to Arkham, she will be able to go away when she needs. And with D.A. Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) calling for the loss of life penalty, she is aware of from the beginning that there’s no pleased ending for Arthur Fleck.

Lee’s portrayal may very well be learn as that of a crafty Jezebel, a girl out to destroy the person who loves her. And if we had been to place a lot inventory within the incel narrativ, then definitely the movie might be learn as misogynistic, a movie that blames girls for the issues of so-called nice males. However I believe that argument solely works if Joker is framed as a hero, and never the narcissistic assassin that he’s.

As Joker manipulated Gotham’s poor within the first movie, considered one of Gotham’s rich in flip manipulates Fleck, and for comparable causes—the digital camera. A lot of the movie options characters enjoying for the digital camera, whether or not it’s Fleck’s interviews, the televised trial, or the musical sequences which really feel extra like bits from The Sonny & Cher Present, and fewer just like the grand musical productions of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Lee offers unprompted press interviews, forcing her method in entrance of the digital camera to degrade Stewart’s authorized prowess and construct up the parable surrounding Joker alongside different like-minded sycophants who need to see Joker and never Arthur Fleck. Lee and these followers, a lot of whom gown like Joker are shadows, impressions of Joker ready for the actual factor. Solely Fleck isn’t the actual factor.

Within the Blu-ray launch for Joker, there’s a featurette referred to as Joker: Imaginative and prescient & Fury through which Todd Phillips says the next: “There’s some ways to have a look at the film. [Arthur Fleck] won’t be Joker. That is only a model of a Joker origin. It’s simply the model this man is telling on this room at a psychological establishment.” Joker’s origin being “a number of alternative” was an idea launched in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ The Killing Joke, which has been utilized many instances over the many years as completely different writers and artists have put their stamp on the Joker’s origin. One of many central complaints from comedian e book followers concerning the first movie was that Arthur Fleck is Joker in title solely, and doesn’t totally epitomize the character we all know from the comics, and as an alternative binds him to a tragic sack of a person. There have been additionally questions concerning the logistics of how this Joker may ever combat Batman, provided that Fleck is in his early 30s and Bruce Wayne is 10 within the movie. The film geek reply is to only have a look at the age hole between Keaton and Nicholson in Batman ’89. The extra fascinating reply, the one the movie commits to, is that Fleck will not be Batman’s Joker.

After Fleck’s former co-worker Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill) testifies to the psychological scars his encounter with Joker left, how he’s lived with the truth that the one one who was form to him at work and didn’t make enjoyable of his top had murdered somebody in entrance of him and made him really feel powerless, Joker’s masks begins to slide. In spite of everything, how can a person propped up because the image of the poor, disabled, and oppressed concurrently be the oppressor? And when a fellow inmate at Arkham, a younger man who idolized Fleck, one other shadow who appeared like the apparent option to be the Joker, is murdered by the guards at Arkham, actuality units in for Fleck. He’s not an anti-establishment determine, or a personality starring within the lead of his present. He’s a assassin who wished to really feel energy and use that energy to be seen, however Arthur Fleck is no person.

And as he admits this to the court docket on dwell TV, a automobile bomb goes off, destroying the courthouse. Arthur wanders outdoors within the chaos, solely to be picked up by two groupies who need him to steer them in burning all of Gotham to the bottom. However Arthur runs, his followers chasing him, till he’s again at his condo, the place he finds Lee, her hair minimize and make-up finished up like a clown. For a second, Arthur thinks he can nonetheless be any individual, that with Lee he can lastly exist. However she has no real interest in Arthur Fleck. Nobody has an curiosity in Arthur Fleck, aside from an viewers that thought he was the Joker.

What fascinates me by way of these two Joker movies is the willingness of sure audiences to immerse themselves in Arthur Fleck’s story, solely once they thought he was the enduring Batman villain. When it’s revealed that he isn’t, that he’s only a depressing, tragic man and the persona was merely a basis for the actual deal, effectively abruptly it’s a betrayal. And I’ve to confess, I do discover it humorous that for seemingly lots of people, it wasn’t this character examine of Arthur Fleck they had been taken with, however how he turns into the villain so adored. However upon reflection, it by no means appeared like Arthur was going to be that man. As an alternative, he evokes the true Jokers, each within the type of Harleen Quinzel, who basically turns into extra Joker than Harley Quinn right here, and the inmate, a no person who can presumably change into a much bigger any individual, and greater menace than Arthur’s Joker ever was. And Joker: Folie a Deux does this whereas additionally tipping the hat to the comedian e book mythos of Joker by no means having a concrete backstory.

Arthur Fleck and these two shadows that rise in his wake isn’t the primary time the idea of a number of Jokers has been utilized. Within the Fox TV sequence, Gotham, the proto-Joker was Jermone Valeska (Cameron Monaghan), however the actual Joker is revealed to be his twin brother, Jeremiah (Monaghan) who improves upon his brother’s work. There’s additionally the matter of Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok’s Batman: The Three Jokers, which explains the Joker’s change in characterization over time as the results of three people, The Legal, The Clown, and The Comic who all serve the position of Joker. What Joker Folie a Deux does right here isn’t outdoors of the realm of concepts which were broached earlier than in numerous methods. But it surely’s by no means been finished on this trend, a $190 million sequel to $1 billion film.

So, is it improper to really feel betrayed by the Joker Folie a Deux, to spend two movies targeted on a personality who was by no means meant to change into the comedian character followers know, and got here out to see? No, it’s not essentially improper. It comes right down to what you need from the Joker. My take is that we’ve seen 1000’s of Joker tales in each medium over the last decade, why not forged the die and do one thing controversial inside a movie that has no connection or intentions upon a bigger cinematic universe?

Perhaps it’s not the punchline we deserve. However by way of a filmmaker who tried to stray from the comics, solely to wind up indebted to them, and a portion of the viewers very invested in comedian e book accuracy and forming connections to characters who match inside the circumstances of the IP they search to have some management over, Joker: Folie a Deux dances by means of a messy supply to land on a reasonably killer joke. We will’t power a personality to change into one thing they aren’t, and creatives can’t attempt to divorce themselves from the supply materials with out circling again round to it in the long run. I don’t learn about you, but it surely positive places a smile on my face.