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 you realize acquired an equally annoying girlfriend? And what in the event that they sang present tunes to one another? And what if you happen to 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 (Woman Gaga), a lady with each a grasp’s in psychiatry and an obsession with Fleck, who will get herself locked up to be able 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, films, 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 in regards to the Joker’s homicide trial. On paper, making a supervillain film that doesn’t contain setting a metropolis on hearth or threatening the world is about as subversive as a director can get. Doubtlessly 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 individuals 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 flicks like Imply Ladies and Wonka, the advertising and inventive staff 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 is likely to be a acutely aware effort to not alienate Joker’s unique viewers, however it could even be primarily based on the notion that movie-going audiences don’t like musicals. Imply Ladies and Wonka didn’t promote themselves as musicals, they usually have been thought-about field workplace successes — in the meantime apparent musicals just like the West Aspect Story revival and Within the Heights underwhelmed.

That stated, and regardless of the reluctance, Joker 2 could be very a lot a film musical — at instances making an attempt to be a really edgy one.

Phillips makes use of music as a really apparent storytelling gadget, if not a really delicate one. All through the movie, Fleck’s sanity is in query. Everybody from judges to docs speak about him dwelling in a “fantasy world.” Enter: the singing and dancing. From “Get Blissful” 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 Woman 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 sort 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 be able to audition.

Phoenix, then again, warbles and screeches via his numbers.

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

Probably the most perplexing aspect of Joker 2 isn’t 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 individuals, he has dissociative id dysfunction (DID), previously often called a number of persona dysfunction. (The police don’t know Fleck killed his personal mom, which might convey the physique rely to 6.) Joker is that different persona, and so Fleck can’t be held accountable. Prosecutor Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) — the person who will turn into the Batman villain often called 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 id dysfunction as a authorized argument is type of compelling however much less so when it turns into all that’s occurring. (It’s additionally essential to notice that regardless of some media portrayals, individuals with DID aren’t extra violent than most of the people.) Courtroom procedurals want some sort of twist or some sort of construct to reinforce 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 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 purpose that so many Batman comics and diversifications have a jailbreak scene. Batman’s villains are extra attention-grabbing after they’re doing crime!

Phillips appears to wish 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 asserted legally insane, how can the legal guidelines in Gotham maintain individuals protected? If nobody will 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 large crowds outdoors of the courtroom, some in Joker masks, Phillips doesn’t actually present us what’s occurring in Gotham. We aren’t actually made to know 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 basic, a clown and his Italian girlfriend are the one people who stand in the way in which 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 people who stand in the way in which 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.