‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is “trying too hard” as the use of French in the title suggests.

‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is adventurous and suffocating, as conflicted as its main character, as experimental and “trying too hard” as the use of French in the title suggests, and yet, I have this sinking suspection that it may be a more focused, more aimed and more substantive than the first one... and maybe even better.

But let’s get this straight, the first film was “a comedy director wanting to make a serious film in a superhero genre he contempt, wearing the skin of other movies to elevate itself”, so wanting to be artsy, wearing high heels in order to look bigger is part of the DNA of the franchise from the start, not something invented for the sequel. And the first movie worked, for me, due to strong convictions from everyone involved, Phoenix acting his heart out, The DOP and music composer experimenting and giving it their all, “Joker 1” is such a strong emotional experience that shakes you with brute force. Joker 2 is still like that, the same guys are still giving it there all, the soundtrack is still haunting, and the images are still striking and strong, but with two differences:

1- It has a unique worldview and something to say
2- It burns with contempt for the fans of the first film

That second one is already said a lot in reviews, Joker 2 hates Joker fans, shows them as an angry toxic mob of suffocating monsters, angsty teens idolize The Joker persona as a Messiah and a savior, basically they are Trump supporters, who don’t see who Trump really is and would do a January 6 for him. After The Boys season 4, it’s interesting that The Superhero Genre’s idea of innovation is “Let’s do Donald Trump” complete with referencing his real life trial from earlier this week. But wouldn’t that be contradictory with the film being sympathetic to Arthur? As subtext maybe, it doesn’t hinder the story or text themselves, but it may hinder any real life specific current day political commentary useless and muddled (The Boys went in an opposite direction turning into a Right Wing parody that diluted a lot of the uniqueness of the world), but as a counter point, the distance and dissonance between Arthur Flick and his supporters is so explicit and so “The point” of the film, that it can work, the supporters can work as a commentary on extreme Trump supporters without turning Arthur himself into a Homelander like Trump avatar. (More on that later)

Another way the film contempts the fans of the first one, is how it is a musical, you get the cynical sense that this is a musical cause people (and those fans specifically) hate musicals, like the decision is taken out of edgy Lars Von Trier like spite (to the point that Arthur almost only appears in Joker clothes during those musical scenes), and then integrated retroactively into the DNA of the film.

But let’s talk about the musical aspect, specially two aspects, how will it is “integrated” and how will it is handled. Integration: It fits Arthur Flick, a performer by nature, a dreamy character, this is the same Arthur that danced to a Chaplin film in the cinema during the first film, that danced in the bathroom after his first kill, his same obsession with TV that made him obsessed with Murray Franklin in the first film is his obsession with old musicals in here, the way Gaga’s Lee sings to him feels like a mother singing calming lullabies to her child (one of many Freudian aspects about Harley’s character here), even the antagonist nature of the decision to make this a musical fits narratively, as the dissonance between how Arthur is just a sensitive gentle boy and the vicious Joker persona idolized by his fans is a point here (clue, the Puddles scene)

But how are those scenes handled? Like Tom Hopper’s Les Miserables, Joker 2 prefers emotions to “good singing” ,the voices are raspy and broken, and the notes are off (it’s not just a Pheonix thing, Gaga does so as well, so it is a choice), it does not always work, but it is admirable, this is one way the musical numbers don’t fly away that much into escapist fantasy land, I am not sure about that, they are meant as escapism for Arthur, but they are rusty and relatively minimal, constrained and grounded, in a space between Lars Von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark” and Chazelle’s “La La Land”. That said, while a lot of these are tied to the grounded bleak world of the film, the line of demarcation between fantasy and objective reality is sometimes too clean, the movie spills it out when a scene is “in his head” (but after it happens, not before, the starting transition is seamless, the return to reality is blunt), another problem is when the songs repeat where we already know from the dialogue, like you say you are sad then sing a song about sadness! That makes them feel redundant. All those issues become non existent in the second half, that has both the most grounded and the most fantastical musical scenes, and both work really well and give a sense that the film finally “getting the hang of this thing”

Back to Arthur, as this is a film about Arthur, it’s an anti- sequel, an anti comic book movie, It’s relationship to being a commercial comic book movie is like Arthur’s relationship to Joker here in a way. As Todd Phillips himself feels that he has to make a “Joker” movie to be listened to or taken seriously, you can call that delusional or narcissistic, or argue how much of the film’s value would be lost if it hasn’t been a comic book movie, it would have drowned in an ocean of sad film festival films, but Todd feels like he has to wear the Joker mask too. This is one of many ways the film is meta, the trial being a trial for the first movie as much as for Arthur, to the TV film about Arthur Lee is a fan of, to the musical numbers all being existing songs (with many references to the “That’s Entertainment” song from Singing in the Rain), if SoCieTy shaped Arthur, then its media -a part of said society- shaped him as well, Same to Lee who is shaped by the TV movie, with the idea of therapy by music introduced early on. How can a movie about a performer not be meta? But the layers of meta here are a rabbit hole. Perhaps that’s to the film’s fault, and that is the reason people call this unnecessary or empty, as the meta aspect makes it spend too much time examining the first film, to the point that the trial turns into a movie review for Joker (2019), I can see people finding that hallow or not substantive even if I don’t agree.

Other than that, the film does interesting things to the Joker/Arthur dichotomy, from it being a shadow self, an extension, a performance, a second personality which I think the film refutes, the D.I.D diagnosis is just a lawyer defense, Arthur did those things, he is accountable, The Joker is not just the violence, it’s the confidence, the performance, the mannarism, the attitude, the charisma. The accountability vs Sympathy, Mental health vs Society’s Fault are interesting dichotomy that provide most of the film’s meat for me. He is a messed up child in a Beksinski like skeletal thin body, (hence the interesting Freudian aspects to most female characters here) the violence is childish, the search of affection is childish, his reactions to everything is childish, this is explicitly not the clown prince of crime, or the force and embodiment of Chaos, again, another reason this might seem empty to some people, in a film almost determined to self sabotage itself like it is as disturbed as Arthur himself. To discuss this more would be getting into heavy spoilers.

But before I end this, I NEED to talk about just how bleak and hopeless this film is, darker than the original and more cruel, Joker 2 is a prison film, where we rarely see the outside world from rare shots or from car windows, a ballsy choice, a film where the cruel prison guards replace the cruel people of the outside world in the first film, from the bullies to the guys on the subway to Murray Franklin, but their authority over Arthur and everyone else m and the helplessness of those inmates make them way more oppressive, like the cruelty of the first film concentrated more, add the cynicism, the failed escapism nature of the musical numbers and the whole third act. The world of Joker 2 is a never ending prison, layers and layers of walls till you reach down and more abstract concepts and your own self become other prison cells inside prison cells, inescapable, unavoidable, omnipresent and overly suffocating. And I am used to depressing hellish cinema, but the walls of the prison here is so close that they leave no room for air, you can argue if the film does justice to mental illness, handling childhood trauma, Schizophrenia, or multiple personality disorder, but this, this is what depression feels like.