Joker: Folie à Deux review: Joker 2 is a miserable courtroom musical

Academy Award-nominated director Todd Phillips and his new sequel Joker: Folie à Deux bravely ask the daring query: What if essentially the most annoying man received an equally annoying girlfriend? And what in the event that they sang present tunes to one another? And what for those who needed to watch?

The person in query is one Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the social outcast turned serial killer from 2019’s Joker, who’s in jail awaiting trial following the occasions of the primary movie. The girlfriend is one Harley Quinn (Girl Gaga), a lady with each a grasp’s in psychiatry and an obsession with Fleck, who will get herself locked up with the intention to stalk him higher. Harley Quinn and Joker’s toxically codependent relationship has existed within the Batverse for many years — first showing in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 — and the previous physician and the one-time affected person who drove her mad have been explored throughout comics, motion pictures, and TV. In Phillips’s new movie, nonetheless, their entanglement is rewritten to be much more grim and, frankly, flat (particularly Quinn’s arc), however with much more singing.

Sure, although he’s loath to inform anybody, Phillips has additionally managed to make a film musical concerning the Joker’s homicide trial. On paper, making a supervillain film that doesn’t contain setting a metropolis on fireplace or threatening the world is about as subversive as a director can get. Probably ignoring the strict directives that include franchise filmmaking and the calls for of Warner Brothers after which throwing in singing and dancing? There was potential right here for one thing actually subversive.

However as Fleck reminds us, some folks don’t search change, however easy distress. For 2 hours and 20 minutes of Joker: Folie à Deux, Phillips exhibits us how.

Following a pattern of films like Imply Ladies and Wonka, the advertising and artistic group behind Joker: Folie à Deux, a.ok.a. Joker 2, have shunned making it clear the film is a musical (a selection the upcoming Depraved additionally appears to be making). A few of that obfuscation may be a acutely aware effort to not alienate Joker’s authentic viewers, however it could even be based mostly on the notion that movie-going audiences don’t like musicals. Imply Ladies and Wonka didn’t promote themselves as musicals, and so they have been thought of field workplace successes — in the meantime apparent musicals just like the West Facet Story revival and Within the Heights underwhelmed.

That mentioned, and regardless of the reluctance, Joker 2 could be very a lot a film musical — at occasions attempting to be a really edgy one.

Phillips makes use of music as a really apparent storytelling machine, if not a really delicate one. All through the movie, Fleck’s sanity is in query. Everybody from judges to medical doctors discuss him residing in a “fantasy world.” Enter: the singing and dancing. From “Get Pleased” to the Carpenters’ “Near You,” the film’s numbers perform as a glimpse into Fleck’s wishes, fears, and psychological sickness all rolled into one.

One can solely know the surreal inside lifetime of this man by peering into his delirious hallucinations, the place we discover a sparkly, razzle-dazzle model of his trauma and psychological sickness.

These moments additionally enable Girl Gaga to take off her pop star masks and present us Stefani Germanotta, theater child. She’s good — particularly when Fleck envisions himself and Harley as a form of chaotic Sonny and Cher duo. Gaga’s dedicated, crackling efficiency is proof there may be room for an additional Judy Garland biopic, so long as she will audition.

Phoenix, alternatively, warbles and screeches by means of his numbers.

The consequence appears like a giant chook harassing one other smaller chook. Phoenix’s vocal efficiency is knowingly dangerous, particularly when you think about this man was nominated for an Oscar enjoying Johnny Money in Stroll the Line. Maybe Phillips believes that his viewers wouldn’t be capable of totally comprehend how disturbed Fleck is that if he sounds easy and pleasant in his personal fantasies, however Phoenix intentionally makes him sound discordant. After three or so songs, the singing simply feels just a little like some form of petty punishment. I suppose that’s the purpose: Being in Joker’s head is meant to be an disagreeable expertise. I simply needed to be unpleased differently.

Essentially the most perplexing factor of Joker 2 will not be that it’s a musical; it’s that it’s a courtroom procedural. Whereas there’s a wealthy cinematic historical past of clowns and their girlfriends in courtrooms, this isn’t a selection that makes for an thrilling movie.

On the coronary heart of this two-hour and 20-minute film is the query of whether or not or not Arthur Fleck, a.ok.a Joker, is insane and, by extension, if the Joker is actual. His lawyer (performed by Catherine Keener) claims as a protection technique that whereas Fleck did kill 5 folks, he has dissociative identification dysfunction (DID), previously generally known as a number of character dysfunction. (The police don’t know Fleck killed his personal mom, which might carry the physique depend to 6.) Joker is that different character, and so Fleck can’t be held accountable. Prosecutor Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) — the person who will change into the Batman villain generally known as Two-Face — argues that Fleck and Joker are one and the identical: a violently wicked assassin.

Watching Fleck in jail ready for trial or on trial ready to return to jail simply doesn’t make for thrilling viewing. Dissociative identification dysfunction as a authorized argument is type of compelling however much less so when it turns into all that’s taking place. (It’s additionally vital to notice that regardless of some media portrayals, folks with DID are usually not extra violent than most people.) Courtroom procedurals want some form of twist or some form of construct to boost the drama. Beginning with all of the playing cards on the desk — Arthur Fleck is culpable for Joker or he isn’t — simply takes the air out of the style.

Possibly that’s why it’s a musical?

As a personality who has been an icon because the Nineteen Sixties, the Joker was created to terrorize Gotham Metropolis. The Joker was not created to sit down in a jail cell and discuss authorized technique together with his lawyer. There’s a motive that so many Batman comics and diversifications have a jailbreak scene. Batman’s villains are extra fascinating once they’re doing crime!

Phillips appears to need to make an even bigger level about how essentially the most terrifying a part of the character is Joker’s affect over Gotham’s residents. If Fleck is allowed to be Joker, then what’s stopping everybody else within the metropolis from being Joker? If Fleck is said legally insane, how can the legal guidelines in Gotham preserve folks protected? If nobody could be held accountable for homicide, it doesn’t matter how highly effective Gotham’s police power is; it doesn’t even matter how highly effective its heroes are. However apart from the massive crowds exterior of the courtroom, some in Joker masks, Phillips doesn’t actually present us what’s taking place in Gotham. We aren’t actually made to grasp the stakes for Joker’s verdict, even when they’re the destruction of a civilized society.

Worst of all, Phillips has deliberately or unintentionally created a bizarro, humorless model of My Cousin Vinny. Within the 1992 traditional, a clown and his Italian girlfriend are the one those that stand in the best way of a mixed-up city convicting a pair of dweebs of homicide. In Joker 2, a clown and his Italian-ish girlfriend are the one those that stand in the best way of a mixed-up city convicting a dweeb of homicide. Now, think about if Marisa Tomei wasn’t charming, the clown wasn’t humorous, and there have been no twists, no turns, and no 1963 Pontiac Tempest with its unbiased rear suspension. Your honor, that dour, depressing factor is The Joker 2.