Todd Phillips is quite insistent that Joker: Folie à Deux is not a musical. First at CinemaCon, then in an interview with Variety, the director explained, “Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It’s just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.” Perhaps Phillips is being obtuse, or maybe he truly believes he’s created something truly cinematically profound rather than a bastard version of The Band Wagon, but with no less than 12 musical numbers (including an original song that doesn’t exactly set the screen on fire) plus Phoenix soft-shoeing his way through proceedings, let’s call a spade a spade: it’s a bloody musical.
In its opening scene, the film at least shows a small spark of promise, paying homage to Looney Tunes with a Joker cartoon (one can’t help but think Warner Brothers are really missing a trick keeping Coyote Vs Acme in the vault) entitled ‘Me and My Shadow’. But soon the wacky, eye-popping violence gives way to the grimy environs of Arkham Asylum, where Arthur “Joker” Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is awaiting trial for the murder of five people including talk show host Murray Franklin.
He’s become a controversial figure since his incarceration, though is mostly on good terms with the inmates and guards at Arkham. Corrections officer Jackie (Brendan Gleeson) decides to pull a few strings to get Fleck into a music class over in a neighbouring cellblock, where he meets fellow patient Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who tells him she’s a huge fan and was institutionalised for setting her parents’ apartment building on fire. Instantly, adhering to the dream logic of musicals, the pair fall madly in love.
Meanwhile, new boy wonder District Attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey, sadly without much to do) announces his intention to pursue the death penalty for Fleck, making an example of him in a lawless Gotham City. Fleck’s newly-appointed lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener, looking bored) advises Arthur to pursue the insanity defense and distance himself from the “Joker” persona. Arthur seems fairly indifferent; he’s mostly interested in a pretty girl finally showing an interest in him. (NB: It’s unclear why Phillips continues to bother bringing in other elements of DC lore given how little interest he has in either adhering to or subverting the source material – name recognition and fan service, presumably.)
Through a series of on-the-nose musical sequences – some with simple set-ups, such as the prison rec room and some more elaborate, such as ‘The Joker & Harley Show’ set – Arthur and Lee croon away, checking off a laundry list of classics including ‘Gonna Build A Mountain’, ‘That’s Entertainment’, ‘I’ve Got the World on a String’, ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’, ‘For Once In My Life’ and ‘(They Long To Be) Close To You’. Gaga sounds great (because she is Lady Gaga) but Phoenix singing as Fleck is flat and mournful, which does become grating after a while, even if technically in character.
The most egregious inclusion on the jukebox soundtrack is a cover of Daniel Johnston’s sublime ‘True Love Will Find You in the End’, sung by Phoenix over the credits. Not only does it feel anachronistic in a film set in 1981 and predominantly populated by songs of the ’50s and ’60s, but opting to include a song famously written by a man who struggled his whole life with bipolar disorder in a film that endlessly links mental illness with violent intent and creepiness indicates the taste level Phillips operates at.
Gaga’s much-fêted follow-up to her impressive turns in A Star is Born and House of Gucci is a let-down through no fault of her own – the character is hopelessly underwritten, and her musical classics were better executed in her 2014 album with Tony Bennett, ‘Cheek to Cheek’. Although her take on Harley Quinn is barely recognisable from the popular depictions of her as a gum-chewing, fast-talking diamond in the rough, there isn’t any attempt made to replace these characteristics with anything new or interesting. Lee’s role in the narrative is purely to encourage Arthur to embrace his “Joker” persona; she exists purely to be obsessed with Joker, which has always been the least interesting aspect of Harley Quinn’s story despite it being her initial purpose.
With Lee’s encouragement, Arthur decides to represent himself at trial, turning the courtroom into a three-ring circus. This is where Phoenix seems to come alive; he is a better clown than he is a coward, but the film focuses much more on the drab, disturbed Arthur Fleck side, who displays no character evolution from the low-rent Rupert Pupkin of the original, lingering again on Phoenix’s rail-thin physique and smeared make-up like there wasn’t enough of that the first time.
As Phillips cribbed mercilessly from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy in Joker, here he’s more than happy to let the musical talent of a bygone era replace compelling story beats or character development, and despite occasional fun flourishes (the cartoon opener, a television dream sequence motif, a prison escape song and dance) the razzle dazzle can’t compensate for a paper-thin premise and how supremely pleased with himself Phillips is for getting $200 million to make this ghastly hack job.
To this end, the third act is where Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver really fumble, creating an about-face for Arthur that comes out of nowhere and opting to end the film on a note so laughably cliché it evokes the Paggliacci joke made famous by Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Perhaps this is the great problem with Joker, and now its sequel: Phillips continually, liberally borrows from much better works, and the result is now a five-hour opus without an original thought present.
It begs the question, why is Phillips so reluctant to embrace that the film is a musical? Why not add a little more colour, some flourish to the production design and create a really fucked up fantasia, instead of the grimdark karaoke session Joker: Folie à Deux turns out to be? Is he concerned about alienating the legions of stans who made the first film a billion-dollar box office smash, or just creatively incurious? Whatever the answer, this is a film of half-measures, lacking ambition in a way that is at least mildly more entertaining than its predecessor, but that’s down to the pleasures of songs written half a century ago rather than any talent Phillips has to offer as a filmmaker. Send in the clowns indeed.
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