At The Movies: Joker: Folie A Deux’s hopeless romantic and karaoke crooner doesn’t hit high notes

Joker: Folie A Deux (NC16)

138 minutes, opens Oct 3
★★☆☆☆

The story: Following the events of Joker (2019), the mass murderer and failed comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) – called Joker by his fan base and detractors – is now incarcerated in Gotham City’s notorious Arkham State Hospital. He seems to have settled into his role as a celebrity inmate, which annoys guards such as Jackie (Brendan Gleeson). At a music therapy session, Fleck meets Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and the pair hit it off.

In interviews following the release of Joker, American director and co-writer Todd Phillips said that if a sequel were made, it would be a musical. He is true to his word: In over a dozen fantasy sequences, Fleck and Quinzel cover lounge, jazz and Motown classics.

Phillips’ taste is immaculate. The tunes include those made famous by Stevie Wonder (For Once In My Life), Judy Garland (Get Happy) and Burt Bacharach (What The World Needs Now Is Love).

The decision to make the sequel to one of 2019’s most commercially successful films a jukebox musical is a bold choice, but in this project, it’s also a bad one.

In a story that already feels as aimless as one of Fleck’s poorly-told jokes, the singing adds more drag. It does not help that the misplaced musical numbers, which exist in Fleck’s world as dream or fantasy sequences, feel neither dream-like nor fantastical. Nobody is asking them to go full Bollywood-fabulous, but their downbeat settings offer little visual respite from Gotham’s grimy streets and gloomy interiors.

The focus of the story is the relationship between Fleck and Quinzel, the character who will flower into the anti-heroic Harley Quinn of the DC Comics universe. While the strong performances of Lady Gaga and Phoenix lend weight to their characters’ emotional journeys, Joker: Folie A Deux’s single-minded focus on the central couple leaves everything else frustratingly truncated and unresolved.

For example, the relationship between Fleck and the others at the hospital cries out for more fleshing out; there are hints that Jackie and Fleck share a power dynamic deeper and more interesting than the one shown.

However, the largest story hole is the one created by the elimination of political and social context. Fleck is shown to be a pawn in a game played by Gotham’s elite, but the masses have elevated him to sainthood. In their eyes, he is a martyr. Fleck’s popular support becomes a crucial plot point, but his hold on the public imagination is simply assumed, never explained, because the spotlight is stubbornly fixed on the central romantic pair, crooning.

Hot take: Joker: Folie A Deux is a jukebox musical that fails to hit the high notes of the original.