The film is a sequel to The Joker, which won the Golden Lion in Venice where it made its premiere in 2019. The new film also stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, the mentally ill professional clown and aspiring stand-up comedian who lives in Gotham, New York, and who becomes a multiple murderer in his persona as The Joker.
Fleck is now institutionalised at Arkham and as the film starts he is awaiting trial for his crimes as The Joker in the previous film. While in prison he discovers true love with Lee, another inmate played by Lady Gaga. The two meet up during the prison’s music therapy classes. Fleck also discovers music and while this is a very unusual kind of musical somehow the music numbers and even the show numbers weave into this dark story and work.
Todd Philips wrote the script for both films together with Scott Silver and rather than going for something safe in the sequel that just rehashes or carries forward the narrative of the first film they have gone for a really different take on it turning it into a very unlikely musical.
In his statement the director said “Joaquin and I had discussed a sequel, but never seriously—until we witnessed the reaction to Arthur’s story. If we were going to do it, we knew we had to swing for the fences; we wanted to create something as crazy and fearless as Joker himself.
So, Scott Silver and I wrote a script that delved further into the idea of identity.
Who is Arthur Fleck? And where does the music inside him come from?”
Joaquin Phoenix really deserves an Oscar nomination if not the Oscar itself for an extraordinary performance as the mentally ill Fleck with his split personality as the deeply depressed, unloved Fleck and his crazy alter ego The Joker. He also manages to do a moving job in his musical numbers. When we see Phoenix as the emaciated Fleck being taken out of his prison cell at the beginning of the film it is a shocking image and one can only hope Phoenix didn’t suffer permanent damage to his health by losing the weight to portray Fleck in this scene.
Lady Gaga who transforms into the Harley Quinn does a decent job as his deranged lover who is more in love with the fantasy of The Joker than the pathetic character of Arthur Fleck. Her contribution to the music numbers in the film is positive and she does a decent job of the acting. One of the highlights of the film’s many musical numbers is a fantasy of a 1960s style show where Phoenix and Lady Gaga do an obvious take on Sonny and Cher. As the whole film takes place in the prison and the courtroom the brightly coloured musical numbers set in a fantasy world of Fleck and Harley Quinn’s imagination serve to lift the otherwise grim backdrop of the story.
Philips has brought something totally new to the Arthur Fleck story and while we are appalled at his crimes Phoenix brings us to have sympathy for this mentally ill killer without losing sight of his unforgivable crimes.
Joker: Folie A Deux (USA)
Directed by Todd Phillips
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz
