Joker: Folly of Two
It’s been five years since Joker’s triumphant premiere at the Venice Film Festival. I still vividly remember emerging from a matinee screening, dazzled less by the relentless glare of the Venetian sun than by the film that had just been screened.
It’s been five years since Joker’s triumphant premiere at the Venice Film Festival. I still vividly remember emerging from a matinee screening, dazzled less by the relentless glare of the Venetian sun than by the film that had just been screened.
Last night, here in Venice, the world premiere of the sequel, Joker: Folie a Deux, took place. The director is again Todd Phillips, with Joaquin Phoenix once again in the lead role, this time joined by Lady Gaga as what I suppose we should call the love interest, although that would understate her wonderful performance.
The film is boldly different in style from the original, not as electrifying, but bold and brilliant nonetheless.
It begins with a sort of sinister joviality, with a Tom and Jerry-style animation of the Joker, to demonstrate that since the events of the first film, Arthur Fleck, along with his murderous alter ego, has become a cultural phenomenon in Gotham City. There has even been a TV movie made about him.
But Arthur is behind bars, waiting to see if he’s judged sane enough to stand trial for murder, and in the meantime he’s enjoying his celebrity status among both his fellow inmates and the guards, one of whom, a sadistic Irishman played by Brendan Gleeson, gives him cigarettes in exchange for jokes.
Joaquin Phoenix is once again in the lead role, this time joined by Lady Gaga as what I guess we’re supposed to call the love interest, though that would understate her wonderful performance.
The film is boldly different in style from the original, not as electrifying, but bold and brilliant nonetheless.
Joker: Folie a Deux is set to be released on October 4, 2024 and will premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
Lady Gaga plays Lee, a fellow inmate who, we assume, is on her way to becoming Joker’s girlfriend, Harley Quinn. The pair hit it off in a music therapy class and soon fall for each other, but Lee makes it clear that she loves the dangerously charismatic Joker, “the clown prince of crime,” not the dark, introspective Arthur.
In fact, identity confusion is the theme of this film, which delves even deeper than the original into schizophrenia and other types of mental illness.
It has been said that Folie a Deux is a musical. It is not, but music looms large as an expression of Arthur and Lee’s love for each other. While watching Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 classic The Band Wagon, Lee, who claims to have been imprisoned for arson, sets fire to the prison wing.
The ensuing chaos offers a prime opportunity for escape, but Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver play with our expectations throughout; every time we anticipate which way the narrative will go, it confuses us by veering off in another direction.
The music is a constant, though: Lady Gaga offers her take on charming oldies by Burt Bacharach and even Motown, and Phoenix is up to the task. There are also a couple of dance routines that make Arthur and Lee look like psychotic versions of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land.
Finally, after Arthur’s high-profile television appearance with a snobby interviewer played by Steve Coogan, it’s time for the trial, with all of Gotham gripped by the issue of multiple personality disorder.
Is Arthur the man accused of five murders, or is he the Joker? His kindly lawyer (Catherine Keener) wants to make it clear that he is Arthur; Lee just as urgently wants him to identify himself as the Joker.
All of this is convincingly directed by Phillips and superbly acted by Phoenix, especially in a role for which he seems tailor-made, but also by Gaga. We know from A Star Is Born in 2018 that she can act, but she really is great in a bad girl role. They would have loved her in St Trinians.
Lady Gaga plays Lee, a fellow inmate who is on her way, we assume, to becoming the Joker’s girlfriend, Harley Quinn.
For those moviegoers who consider Joker: Folie a Deux to be just another unnecessary Batman spin-off, perhaps they should think twice.
As for those moviegoers who consider Joker: Folie a Deux to be just another unnecessary Batman spin-off, perhaps they should think twice.
This movie may not be among the best about mental illness, alongside all-time greats like Psycho and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it’s not far off.
Joker: Folie a Deux is released in the UK on October 4, 2024.