Joaquin Phoenix returns as the scrawny Arthur Fleck, a sad man who set Gotham aflame with his violent chaos as Joker a few years earlier, in Joker: Folie à Deux, a movie where Lady Gaga is also present.
Apparently the time between the events of Joker and now has, in the world of the films, been spent with the authorities of Gotham — such as assistant district attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) — trying to figure out if Arthur is sane enough to stand trial. Arthur’s lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), wants to argue that as a result of childhood abuse Arthur has split personalities and the “Joker” is a protective alter. The Joker killed people but Arthur isn’t criminally responsible, is her argument. A somewhat zonked out Arthur doesn’t seem to have an opinion on this or anything really until a chance meeting with Lee — Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga) — an inmate at the more mental-health-focused side of Arkham. He is instantly enamored with her, and she with him, and they engage in a romance of dream-sequence musical numbers and occasional real-life (maybe) meetings that lead to Lee being the queen fan of Joker’s supportive public. With Lee’s encouragement, Arthur lets the Joker come out more — but he isn’t ultimately any more comfortable as the poster boy for societal discontent than he is as the damaged Arthur.
This movie doesn’t seem to fully invest itself in any one thing. The Lee/Arthur relationship feels like it could be something, but it deflates before we really get a whole lot of “Deux” out of their “Folie à Deux.” I could live with how little we get of Harleen and her personality and motivations if the movie did something interesting with her in Arthur’s story, but it doesn’t.
I also wondered for a while if the movie was trying to subvert the expectations of the last movie. The last movie was all modern red-pill-internet bleakness in a fancy “gritty 1970s film” wrapping; there were times when I wondered if this movie was trying to say “all that stuff you thought was so cool was actually really horrible and sad.” But the movie seems only half in with this idea.
While the movie tells us that Lee loves the fame aspect of it all, we don’t really see that either. Most of the media about Arthur and his crimes — a book, a TV movie — feels very off screen. We never know what, if any, role Lee has in the Joker mythology. There’s a mention of her doing a lot of interviews. Is she just a Joker cheerleader, an entertaining focal point for the Joker-loving malcontents in her own right or is she, like, the Yoko of his legend?
And if the movie is trying to Say Something about crime as entertainment or how we filter our stories through the beats of movies, it doesn’t really stay with that either. I didn’t love the first Joker, but I understood the story it was telling and how it wanted to tell it. Here I feel like the movie had its centerpieces — Joker but sad! Lady Gaga! Surprise, it’s a musical, sort of! — but didn’t know how to construct a story around those. I feel like there is an interesting story here about the After of a burst of societal anger and violence. What becomes of the leader, what becomes of his followers when the leader doesn’t live up to their ideal, what fills the vacuum left by the original focal point of all that energy? But there’s also a lot of unnecessary junk getting in the way of that.
Which brings us to this movie’s final moments. After what felt like a forever of watching the movie search for a purpose for its visuals of Gaga in Harley Quinn makeup or the duo on a ’70s-style variety show — elements that feel like they haven’t yet made the jump from “idea board” to “part of the story” — we get to the very end when the movie bows out with a “ha made you look” beat of self-satisfied cleverness that made me think “shut up, movie.” Well, things other than “shut up” but “shut up” is the only one that can be printed in a newspaper. This is maybe this sequel’s greatest failing — when it’s not boring, it’s needlessly annoying. C-
(I thought about going lower but there isn’t even an “interesting failure” aspect about this movie. It’s solidly in forgettable “meh” territory. Its most lasting impact is probably forcing me to learn how to make the “à” character — alt 0224, my fellow character map aficionados.)
Rated R for some strong violence, language throughout, some sexuality, and brief full nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Todd Phillips with a screenplay by Scott Silver & Todd Phillips, Joker: Folie à Deux is two hours and 18 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Warner Bros.
