“Joker: Folie A Deux” follows Arthur Fleck in the second part of his story, following the events of the first Joker film from 2019. Within the second movie, audiences get more character development of Fleck, as well as the introduction of the new character, Harley Quinn.
This movie focuses on Fleck’s court trial following his actions in the first movie, depicting every aspect of it such as his prison life, interviews, trials and reports. The film ends with Harley leaving Fleck and his death while imprisoned. This movie emphasizes the use of music within it, often having characters such as Fleck and Quinn singing songs out loud.
Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker in this movie was good, his acting showed emotional depth and he gave the character of Joker a whole new take. Lady Gaga was able to make the role of the completely new Quinn character feel real and human, which was extremely different than other iterations. However, at times, it felt like she was reading lines from the script with limited emotional capabilities. The writers failed not only the audience, but also the actors who tried their best with what they were given.
In simple words, this movie doesn’t excel, plot wise. The central idea is that Fleck’s mental illness comes from his childhood trauma, and that’s a really important aspect of his character. But, how his “fans” don’t care about that aspect of him and only care about him as the Joker, is an interesting and meta theme. However, the way the writers try to convey this message is not successful. It felt as if they wanted returning fans to be satisfied, leading to the film feeling like the writers weren’t putting both feet forward with the plot. This made the movie dissatisfying to any aspect of the plot.
This movie’s pacing was frankly terrible. It felt like the writers had more they wanted to say but couldn’t fit it all into one movie, which gave the movie’s end a rushed esque feeling that felt abrupt and random. This could have some poetic meaning behind it, but frankly, it felt rushed.
However, there were some positive aspects of this movie – things like use of color and music choices. The use of color was beautiful – emphasizing greens, yellows, blues and reds to make the film have a gritty and night-time ‘80s aesthetic.
The emphasis on greens made this world seem more realistic because of its similarities to New York due to following the Joker’s color palette from the first movie. Then, the use of music really emphasized the musical aspect of this movie, using traditional pop songs like Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life” to further the aesthetic of this gritty New York “Taxi Driver” adjacent city. With the use of the color and music, the producers of the film were able to successfully build the world of this film.
Lastly however, audiences could tell from the beginning of the foreshadowing death of the Joker with him never having an actual chance of living. This reality made audiences wish for the writers to implement the Joker’s death much better. This movie never really developed any of its plot points successfully, making it unnecessary for fans who watched the first one. This project failed at what it set out to accomplish, only being redeemable by elements such as color and music.
Compared to the first Joker movie, the second is at best an attempt to try to recapture the magic of the first, which utterly failed. This film seemed like a blatant cash grab, crafted solely for the writers to make a quick profit. Audiences can blame no one for the failure of this movie but the writers. The actors did amazing, but they could only do so much with the limited creativity of the script. “Joker: Folie a Deux” is a 4 out of 10, which is heartbreaking due to how amazing the first one was.
