While awaiting trial for his crimes at Arkham state hospital, failed comedian Arthur Fleck, struggling with his dual identities, meets his soulmate Lee Quinzel who could be the key to his salvation.
Re-teaming with director Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix returns to the role that won him an Oscar in 2020, while Lady GaGa joins the cast as Quinzel, a version of the Jokers comic book love interest Harley Quinn.
Brendan Gleeson also joins the cast as prison guard Jackie Sullivan, while Catherine Keener is Fleck’s Lawyer and Steve Coogan appears as a provocative television host keen to goad Fleck into more prime-time TV gold.
Zazie Beetz and Leigh Gill return to provide connective tissue to the first film, while Oscar winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir is also back to deliver another hauntingly ambient score.
Comic book readers and viewers of the first film may expect Folie à Deux to follow Fleck’s transition into the Joker and watch him become the clown prince of crime, but the script from Phillips and Scott Silver is a clear attempt to move the story in another direction and aggressively subvert the expectations of the hardcore DC fandom that lapped up the original.
Although studio Warner Bros. are keen to stress the film isn’t a musical, Arthur and Lee meet in a hospital singing class, resulting in many sing-song interactions between the pair, while song and dance dream sequences also feature and push the film towards that genre.
It’s an artistically brave move, but perhaps a financially foolish one, to alienate the fans that made the first film such a success. This Joker bares extraordinarily little resemblance to that of the Batman villain we know and may well have fared better as a film without the weight of pre-existing comic book baggage.
Nevertheless, viewed with an open mind, the film is captivating viewing, with Phoenix again on top form as the painfully thin Fleck, while GaGa excels, not just with the singing, but proves herself to be equally as accomplished as an actor.
The story is light on plot and more of a character study, delving deeply into Arthur’s mental health struggles, as he deals with his feelings for Lee, his personality disorder and the pressures of being a now notorious killer.
The films audacious swerve away from the expected will undoubtedly divide fans, but whatever your opinion, in an era of cookie cutter films, the courage from Phillips to try something new is admirable.
A dark and bizarrely musical thriller, Folie à Deux never reaches the heights of the first film, but instead acts as a sad and haunting epilogue to the original.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Paul Steward
X @grittster
12/10/24