Joker: Folie à Deux review – Sadly toothless

Along with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, arguably only one other film with comic book superhero origins has managed to enter the hallowed halls of prestige cinema – and that’s Todd Phillips’s 2019 Joker. Winning two Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards, including Best Actor for star Joaquin Phoenix, standalone Joker turned the backstory of Batman’s most iconic villain into an uncomfortable psychological thriller and character study, challenging audiences to understand and sympathise with an unpredictable, violent man.

Joker was supposed to be once-off, but releasing exactly five years after the original is narrative follow-up Joker: Folie à Deux. Folie à Deux brings back Phillips and Phoenix. More importantly, however, it introduces Lady Gaga as a fresh take on Joker’s romantic interest and partner in anarchy, Harley Quinn. From the outset, the film has promised something quite different, in the form of hallucinatory music numbers that represent Joker and Harley’s shared psychosis. The problem, though, is that Joker: Folie à Deux fails to deliver on its potential for another bold and rule-breaking cinematic experience.

Joker: Folie à Deux is set two years after the events of Joker, and in that time Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) has become a subdued, obedient inmate at Arkham State Hospital, impossible to rile up by Brendan Gleeson’s swaggering head guard and his cronies. On the cusp of Arthur’s murder trial – with a death sentence hanging over his head – our antihero encounters Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Gaga) in the low security wing of the facility. Their instant connection, and Lee’s support, encourage Arthur to once more embrace his Joker persona, stop taking his meds, and kick to the curb the split personality defence that his attorney (Catherine Keener) has been developing.

It’s at this exact point that Joker: Folie à Deux stalls, veering away from audience expectation, but not in an enjoyably surprising way. It’s hard to tell whether Phillips simply didn’t know how to get the film to the finish line, or whether someone got cold feet, but Folie à Deux ends up feeling suppressed and unsatisfying. Viewers readying themselves for energetic Chicago-esque music numbers as Joker and Harley bring mayhem to the city will find none of that here. For the most part, the musical sequences feel like a blues club or experimental off-Broadway show, as Arthur and Lee murmur out their feelings in strained voices that haven’t been warmed up. These indulgent reveries push the film’s running time towards the 140-minute mark.

With the expectation of vibrant music interludes dashed, so too are further explorations of societal inequality and consequence-free abuse of the already downtrodden, which gave 2019’s Joker an emotional charge. Joker: Folie à Deux is oddly apologetic and conforming on that front, forcing Arthur to feel guilt for the emotional distress he caused others when he finally lashed out in response to his relentless oppression. Phoenix is once more superb in capturing the many nuanced sides of Arthur, but the film hauls its lead unnecessarily along a redemptive path. It turns out this Joker isn’t really that bad.

It’s an odd creative choice, and the same applies to the treatment of beloved character and agent of chaos Harley Quinn. Gaga lights up every scene she’s in, but it quickly becomes apparent that Joker: Folie à Deux is still a Joker-centred film. Arthur keeps the spotlight to himself, with Lee’s backstory talked about rather than shown. And, later on, she just disappears from the movie. On a problematic note, Harley is also portrayed as persistently deceitful, confirming incel (Arthur is definitely one of their number) suspicions that women are treacherous, manipulative and self-serving.

To clarify, though, Joker: Folie à Deux is more disappointing than badly made. Phillips’s grasp of mise-en-scène makes Folie à Deux the kind of movie that will be dissected in college film appreciation courses for years to come. Every frame is rich in detail, while long unbroken takes add to the impressiveness of what has been accomplished. It’s just that this level of consideration doesn’t seem to have been applied consistently across the whole project. If Joker felt like a comic-born cousin to Taxi Driver, Joker: Folie à Deux, lacking nerve, doesn’t feel like much of anything.

Calling to mind a scene in the film where Joker and Harley talk explicitly about “giving the people what they want,” Joker: Folie à Deux won’t please any audience segment, from existing Joker fans and Little Monsters to cinemaphiles.

Joker: Folie à Deux is in cinemas, including IMAX (which the film was shot for), from Friday, 4 October.