Joker: Folie à Deux (2024 | USA | 139 minutes | Todd Phillips)

There’s an old tweet I think about somewhat often, probably impossible to find today, from one of the Weird Twitter accounts I followed back in the day that said something like ”When did we all decide the hardest role for any actor to play is the clown that fights Batman?”

It does seem absurd that this particular role has taken such an outsized role with actors who want to prove their worth the same way Lawrence did with Shakespeare. We’re here to talk about Joaquin Phoenix’s second (and almost certainly final) film in his arc as the famous villain. I was quite fond on the first movie in 2019. Phoenix earned his Oscar with such an immersive and heartbreaking performance. Since experiencing the sequel, I wonder, though, if I enjoyed the first movie more as a response to the vile fearmongering it generated.

The old adage that the original is always better than the sequel certainly applies here. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that Joker: Folie à Deux is the most unpleasant experience I’ve had in a movie theater since SIFF decided to screen the (almost literally) nauseating The Greasy Strangler for press and passholders.

Last time we saw Joaquin Phoenix don the makeup and red suit, he was carrying out five or six murders, depending on who’s counting. In Folie à Deux, Joker/Arthur Fleck is on trial for five of those murders. Ambitious ADA Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) is going to seek the death penalty and Arthur’s attorney (Catherine Keener) might have a fighting chance to save him if she’d get a little more cooperation from her client.

Much of the film involves transporting Arthur Fleck between Arkham Asylum and the Gotham City courthouse, so we see our antihero reacting to radio broadcasts of news of his trial. (Side note: Fleck is being tried by the state of New York, but I always assumed canon held that Gotham City is in New Jersey.) On the way to one of his pretrial examinations, he meets Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga), who does business here as “Lee.” She’s his muse and co-conspirator, likely to the detriment of his legal case.

She’s also here because this movie is, inexplicably, a musical. There are several scenes that feature duets between Phoenix and Gaga, and she’s a lovely singer and he’s passable, and they go through a lot of the Great American Songbook. The musical numbers are, though, where the movie goes off the rails. It’s an unconventional musical, sure, and I’m all for breaking rules, but there are some that just need to be followed, no excuses.

The musical numbers, pointless as they are, might not have been so excruciating if the movie had some subtlety and considerably less pathos from Arthur. This movie is so completely void of any joy or humor, it seems like a deliberate provocation against the audience. Considering the previous Joker movie was the first R-rated film to earn $1 billion at the box office, the contempt director Todd Phillips shows toward the (massive) fan base is admirable in a perverse way. The funniest moment in the movie involved Arthur telling someone he hopes they get cancer. Spoiler, sorry.

When I review movies, I try to find some positive aspect to hang on to because most movies aren’t generally that terrible. I will say the acting from Gaga and Phoenix is very good, but it doesn’t make the movie any more enjoyable. I don’t feel bad for hating Joker: Folie à Deux as much as I did, because I’m confident it hates me more.

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Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters now.