Joker: Folie à Deux

Written & Directed by: Todd Phillips

Written by: Scott Silver

Having murdered six people, including talk show host Murray Franklin on live television, we find Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham hospital facing a trail for his crimes. Here he meets a new patient, Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a fan girl obsessed with Joker and his acts. As their relationship grows and Arthur heads to court, Lee encourages him to be himself, embrace the support of his “fans”, get free and together they can head off to “build a mountain” together. 

Todd Phillips in his follow up to the hugely successful Joker has decided that what we needed was a fantasy musical that explores the relationship between Joker and Harley, through a series of extravagant musical set pieces. And for 45 minutes we did, it was an irreverent, entertaining building of a relationship. It was like La La Land if everyone was a psychopath. But the problem was by 55 minutes you realise that actually we did not need it all.

The problem with Folie à Deux is it doesn’t have a story to tell. It has a promising setup and in Phoenix and Lady Gaga two excellent performers, who take us through a wild musical ride. However, it runs out of steam extremely quickly and rather than giving us, as we had in Joker, Fleck’s descent into delusional, murderous fantasy, we instead get his slow descent into dull procedural court room drama. 

While most characters are paper thin and forgettable a couple are wasted. Brendon Gleeson’s singing, psychotic prison warden for one. But no one more than Lady Gaga who is excellent in every moment on screen and at the heart of the story, until Philips runs out of ideas leaving her literally watching the action.

This is a hugely disappointing sequel. Its madcap fantasy musical approach works for 45 minutes, until you realise it’s a film with no story that descends into a dull courtroom drama that does nowhere at all. A film that wastes both the excellent first film and the fabulous talent on display. A crime deserving of a stint in Arkham.