There are many life lessons to be gleaned from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” One, always listen to Catherine Keener; two, let Lady Gaga just dance already; and three, there’s nothing wrong with making a disappointing sequel. Just make sure you disappoint the right people.
If you’re expecting director Todd Phillips’ follow-up to “Joker” (2019) to be the best-case scenario (the “Empire Strikes Back” of supervillain spinoffs) or the worst (God’s gift to incel film bros), you’re out of luck. In the sequel, the gruesome, miserable life of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) ends with both bangs and whimpers, gleefully undermining the villain mythmaking that made the first film such a provocative (and divisive) trip.
Phillips is no stranger to sequels; he directed all three films in the “Hangover” trilogy, which began with a trio of overgrown boys (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis) waking up from a Las Vegas bacchanal they couldn’t remember. They had questions: What the fuck did they get up to? Did they really have all that in them? And could they do it all again?
Those same mysteries haunt “Folie à Deux,” which begins two years after Arthur, a.k.a. Joker, was arrested for shooting and killing a talk show host (Robert De Niro) who mocked his attempts at standup comedy. Through his crimes, Arthur achieved a grotesque transcendence—he no longer had to pretend to be moral or sane—but his morbid feelings of empowerment have evaporated at the start of the sequel.
Locked in an island penitentiary reminiscent of Riker’s, Arthur awkwardly shuffles, his bones stabbing through his skin more noticeably than ever. Life was bad enough when routine meant picking up his medication and slogging up a Sisyphean staircase; now, he spends his days dumping the contents of his chamber pot and waiting to (probably) be executed.
Arthur’s lawyer, Maryanne (Keener), hopes to spare him the electric chair by convincing Gotham City that her client’s actions were spurred by a lethal split personality (“Folie à Deux” is set in the ’80s, the decade of John Hinckley Jr.’s successful insanity defense after attempting to assassinate Ronald Reagan). But whether or not Maryanne is right, Arthur barely has enough life left in his brittle body and soul to persuade a jury.
Until, that is, he falls under the hypnotic sway of Lee (Lady Gaga), a Joker fangirl who checks herself into Arkham State Hospital in the hopes of meeting her murderous crush. “She’s really something,” Arthur says with wistful wonderment. Even a serial killer can recognize that it’s a privilege to be in the presence of her GRAMMY-winning ladyship.
Arthur insists that Lee gets him because they’re from the same working-class Gotham neighborhood, but that’s one of the many lies she tells him. In reality, Lee attended graduate school and is the daughter of a doctor. She doesn’t care about Arthur, but she fetishizes Joker and his body count, gushing, “He’s perfect!” Yikes.
Casual malevolence comes easy to Lady Gaga, who was last seen on the big screen plotting the murder of Maurizio Gucci in Ridley Scott’s underrated “House of Gucci” (2021). She got aggrieved reviews for that performance (a “Gucci” dialect coach said her accent sounded “more Russian” than Italian), but Scott gave her what her galactic charisma demanded: a story with the scope of a planetarium.
Playing Patrizia Reiggiani, Lady Gaga entered “House of Gucci” in a pale-green dress, swaggering to the rhythm of “La Ragazza Col Maglione” and reveling in the gazes of the workmen flabbergasted by her beauty. Scott knew that a pop star who plays sold-out stadiums needed wide-open spaces to do her work—whereas Phillips bafflingly fights to contain her, searching for authentic reality in her authentically unreal persona.
“Folie à Deux” earned an R rating for “some strong violence, language throughout, some sexuality, and brief full nudity,” but I was nearly as disturbed by the sight of Lady Gaga singing “(They Long to Be) Close to You” to Phoenix through a pane of glass, boxed in by prison walls. She’s perfectly good as Lee, but she could have been monstrously good if Phillips understood that a cage is no place for the singer of “Free Woman.”
Watching “Folie à Deux,” I wanted to hear Lady Gaga sing with her whole body, not just her lustrous vibrato. She belongs in a proper modern musical—think Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” (2016) or Michael Gracey’s “The Greatest Showman” (2017)—not Phillips’ ersatz-MGM spectacle, which is filled with song-and-dance fantasy sequences that interrupt the film instead of expanding it.
The first “Joker” played as an accidental musical; Phoenix was absurdly graceful when he grooved to “Slap that Bass,” waved his hands to “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and kicked his way down Guason Stairs. “Folie à Deux” has more music but feels less lyrical, since the musical numbers are momentary escapes from the claustrophobia of Arthur’s cell and the chaos of the courtroom, rather than fluid expressions of feeling.
There’s little suspense at Arthur’s trial—spoiler: he killed six people in a movie we saw five years ago—but the courtroom is where the sequel makes the case for its existence. Arthur may be on trial, but Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver seem more interested in cross-examining the original “Joker,” which was criticized for inviting audiences deep into the psyche of its vicious protagonist.
In “Folie à Deux,” the most damning witnesses turn out to be the people Arthur felt the most affection for, like his neighbor Sophie (Zazie Beetz) and his co-worker Gary (Leigh Gill). “Gary, I like you!” Arthur exclaims in the middle of the trial, oblivious to the truth that he not only took lives, but traumatized those he spared. Mercy matters little to anyone who will forever see his face in their nightmares.
At the end of the original “Joker,” Arthur smeared a crimson grin across his face, hinting that he was ready to become the demonic crime boss of Batman lore. “Folie à Deux” wipes away the makeup, revealing an abused boy who grew into an evil man—a man who may yet reclaim some of his humanity by awakening to the futility of blaming everyone but himself.
I don’t mean to suggest that a happy ending awaits; there’s a reason “Folie à Deux” isn’t called “Anatomy of a Joker,” “Singin’ in Gotham,” or “The Arkham Redemption.” Nevertheless, I was moved by Phillips’ quest to both humanize and punish Arthur, simultaneously subverting and fulfilling the promises of the DC comic books that unleashed the character.
Phillips has said that “Folie à Deux” will be his last “Joker” film. Selfishly, I’m glad. While I love an unwinnable fight, the overblown controversies (which I analyzed in my State of the Cinema newsletter) surrounding these movies have made them exhausting to defend, forcing critics who like them to advocate not only for their good taste, but their good will.
That’s my job, of course, and it’s easier than the one Phillips had. Over the course of two films—one a minor masterpiece, the other a noble curiosity—he had to entertain without exploiting, to solicit empathy but not sympathy for Arthur. The best thing I can say about “Joker: Folie à Deux” is that Phillips holds true to the terms of that contract, right to the blood-soaked end.
