By Mark Fields
Second Time Around Falls Flat
Todd Phillip’s 2019 superhero-adjacent drama, Joker, posited a much darker backstory for the eponymous (and renowned) Batman villain. As portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix Arthur Fleck — a mentally ill street clown and dismal stand-up comic – was not a gleeful master criminal but instead a deeply disturbed individual who violently acts out when society pushes him to the brink. The performance won Phoenix an acting Oscar, and the film was credited for taking the Batman/Gotham City mythology to a new and much more bleak place.
Joker Folie a Deux aspires to push the envelope even further by incorporating the Harley Quinn character, played by Lady Gaga, into the story and making it a musical. The film toggles between the grim landscapes of a crime-ridden Gotham and the spotlight-drenched fantasies of two delusional characters.
These sequel embellishments are an intriguing development, and Phillips again demonstrates that he is an effective, even compelling filmmaker. Unfortunately, the fantasy sequences only serve to draw attention to the desperation of these characters’ lives in a way that demeans their pain and seems to extol their pathologies. The juxtaposition makes this film even more macabre and excruciating than the first.
The Arthur Fleck character, now confined to Arkham Asylum, is too damaged and depressed to show any evolution or self-awareness, and so Phoenix’s performance feels like a prolonged re-tread of Joker. Gaga brings new energy and actual vocal skills to the role of Harley, but an inexplicable script decision robs the character of validity or sympathy. Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Bettz, and Steve Coogan gamely try to bring some life to their secondary roles, but their efforts are shunted aside for the two main stars.
I keep trying to figure out what the point of Joker Folie a Deux might be, perhaps the escapist (albeit deceptive) power of fantasy amidst the tedium and powerlessness of modern life. That theme has already been done, and better, in other films. The allure of putting the magnetic Lady Gaga into this especially dystopian universe is undeniable, but hardly justification for the entire movie. Otherwise, we are left with the conclusion that Phillips and company were simply testing to see how depraved they could go, a journey that leaves this reviewer believing he didn’t get the joke.
