Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and major spoilers down below for those who haven’t yet watched “Joker: Folie à Deux.”
He’s a joker, he’s a smoker, he’s a midnight toker … but most fans sure didn’t expect him to be part of a full-blown musical extravaganza. (Okay, that’s the last song-based Joker pun for the rest of this article, I promise.) Riding high off the billion-dollar success of the 2019 film “Joker,” director Todd Phillips had his pick of the litter over where to take things next once plans for a sequel inevitably came knocking at his door. “Joker: Folie à Deux” is the end result of almost five years of speculation and hype, both of which increased exponentially once the news hit that no less a talent than singer/songwriter/actor Lady Gaga would be joining Joaquin Phoenix as a new take on Harley Quinn (referred to as “Lee Quinzel” throughout the film).
Rumors began to run rampant that Phillips and his creative team were taking an unusual approach this time around, with early word pointing towards a movie with “musical influences.” None of the cast or crew wanted to tip their hand about it one way or the other, while even the marketing attempted to play coy. Once the buzzy production hit the film festival circuit and reactions began pouring in, though, the jig was well and truly up. And now that audiences worldwide are able to hit the multiplexes and see it for themselves, not even Arthur Fleck himself could deny the reality that’s plain to see: “Joker: Folie à Deux” is undeniably a musical.
Joker 2 co-starred Lady Gaga, so who are we trying to fool?
As radical as a musical might be for a comic book movie (let alone one with as much baggage as these “Joker” films), it shouldn’t exactly be a controversial statement to make in the year of our lord 2024. Worse still, the ongoing practice of studios going above and beyond to hide the fact that they’ve made a musical ought to strike most film fans as very, very silly. Conventional wisdom dictates that musicals simply don’t perform well at the box office, and the precedent has certainly been set and dutifully followed in recent years: the new “Mean Girls” remake, the upcoming “Wicked” adaptation, “The Color Purple,” and even “Wonka” all went out of their way to toe the company line. We can now add “Joker” to the top of the list, for better or worse, despite what everyone involved had to say these past several months.
And, boy, did Todd Phillips and his co-leads have a lot to say about that, with Phillips going so far as to call the musical sequences a “nightmare” to craft. Now, obviously Warner Bros. and their PR folks must’ve instructed the cast and crew to do everything in their power to avoid letting the word “musical” cross their lips in various interviews and public appearances to promote the sequel. More power to ’em! The data probably backs up the bean-counters, even though there are countless instances of unabashed musicals taking off at the box office and even going on to become major Academy Award contenders. But when the major Hollywood trade outlets describe the movie as a musical from the outset, when you cast the musical talents of Lady freaking Gaga to play partner-in-crime Harley Quinn, and when our first official look at the sequel touted the theatricality of the sets and costume/production design … then what are we even accomplishing here by burying our heads in the sand and pretending otherwise?
If Joker 2 was going to be a musical, then it should’ve committed to being a musical
Yet, for all that angst spent over the whole song-and-dance histrionics in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” we now come to the crux of the issue: How much does the sequel actually commit to being a musical? The answer to that might seem obvious on the surface — the script quickly ushers in the first of the film’s many musical numbers early on with Arthur performing a solo rendition of “For Once In My Life,” after all, followed by the bravura set piece outside of Arkham after Harley’s pyromaniac episode. But take a closer look at how all these sequences are incorporated into the action and, well, let’s just say there’s a reason why musical fans might come away a bit unsatisfied with Phillips’ handling of this genre mashup. (That said, /Film’s own Bill Bria praised that aspect of it as an intentional deconstruction in his review.)
The ways that “Folie à Deux” falls short of its own ambitions becomes clear when you take note of the fact that, rather than simply presenting these songs as part of the fabric of the narrative, Phillips’ script insists on spinning them as fantasy dream sequences taking place entirely in the heads of our two main leads. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. It gets worse when you look at the filmmaking style used to depict all of these sequences, as well. Other than Arthur’s very first song in the cell block along with his other inmates, with director of photography Lawrence Sher’s camera almost literally dancing around the room alongside Joaquin Phoenix, the vast majority of these extravagant scenes feel like shockingly mundane and low-energy efforts. The set design lacks colors that pop, the creative team opts for a visually bland liminal space of ink-black darkness to emphasize that all of this is happening in the Joker and Lee’s imaginations, and even the choreography feels lacking — highlighted (lowlighted?) by the Joker’s tap-dancing moment late in the film that comes across as obligatory and unspectacular.
Did Phillips even want to include these scenes in the first place? Or does her perhaps regret opting for a full-length sequel rather than the Broadway play he initially envisioned? We’ll never know for sure, but the unimpressive musical we’re left with says a lot.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” is now playing in theaters.
