Audacious, different, bold and brilliant! Joker: Folie a Deux is a punchline five years in the making, and boy is it worth the wait, writes BRIAN VINER
Joker: Folie a Deux – A Daring, Brilliant Sequel
Five years have passed since Joker’s triumphant opening at the Venice Film Festival. I can still remember jumping out of my skin after a morning screening, blinded less by the relentless glare of the Venetian sun than by the film we had just seen.
Five years have passed since Joker’s triumphant opening at the Venice Film Festival. I can still remember jumping out of my skin after a morning screening, blinded less by the relentless glare of the Venetian sun than by the film we had just seen.
The sequel, Joker: Folie a Deux, had its world premiere here in Venice last night. Todd Phillips is directing again, with Joaquin Phoenix once again in the title role. He’s joined this time by Lady Gaga, who will probably call her the sweetheart, though that would be understating her great performance.
The film is a bold departure from the original in style. It is not as exciting, but it is still bold and brilliant.
It starts off with a sort of sinister glee with a Joker animation in the style of a Tom & Jerry cartoon, to show that Arthur Fleck, along with his murderous alter ego, has become a cultural phenomenon in Gotham City since the events of the first film. There’s even been a TV movie made about him.
But Arthur is locked up, waiting for the day he is deemed sane to stand trial for murder. In the meantime, he revels in his celebrity, both with his fellow inmates and the guards. One of them, a sadistic Irishman played by Brendan Gleeson, gives him cigarettes in exchange for jokes.
Joaquin Phoenix is once again seen in the title role, this time joined by Lady Gaga as what I guess we should call the love interest, although that would be understating her terrific performance
The film is boldly different in style from the original, not as exciting, but still bold and brilliant
Joker: Folie a Deux will be released on October 4, 2024, and will premiere at the 81st annual Venice Film Festival
Lady Gaga plays Lee, a fellow inmate on her way, we presume, to becoming Joker’s girlfriend, Harley Quinn. The two hit it off during a music therapy class and quickly fall in love, but Lee makes it clear that she’s into the dangerously charismatic Joker, “clown prince of crime,” not the broodingly introspective Arthur.
Identity confusion is indeed the theme of this film, which delves even deeper than the original into schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness.
It has been said that Folie a Deux is a musical. It isn’t, but music is an important expression of Arthur and Lee’s growing love for each other. While watching Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 classic The Band Wagon, Lee, who claims to be in prison for arson, sets fire to their prison wing.
The chaos that ensues provides an excellent opportunity for escape, but Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver play with our expectations throughout. Every time we anticipate where the story is going, we are confused by being taken in a different direction.
The music is a constant, though, with Lady Gaga giving her take on some lovely old Burt Bacharach and even Motown numbers, and Phoenix more than holding his own. There are also some swoon-worthy dance routines that make Arthur and Lee look like psychotic versions of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land.
Finally, after Arthur’s high-profile TV appearance with a self-righteous interviewer played by Steve Coogan, it’s time for the trial. All of Gotham is gripped by the topic of multiple personality disorder.
Is Arthur the suspect accused of five murders, or is it Joker? His friendly lawyer (Catherine Keener) wants to make it clear that it’s Arthur; Lee is just as desperate for him to identify himself as Joker.
It’s all convincingly directed by Phillips, and fantastically acted by Phoenix in particular, in a role he seems tailor-made for, but also by Gaga. We’ve known she can act since 2018’s A Star is Born, but she’s truly brilliant as a bad girl. They’d have loved her at St Trinians.
Lady Gaga plays Lee, a fellow inmate who is on her way to, we assume, becoming the girlfriend of Joker, Harley Quinn
For those moviegoers who consider Joker: Folie a Deux to be yet another unnecessary Batman spin-off, they might want to think again.
And for those moviegoers who consider Joker: Folie a Deux to be yet another unnecessary Batman spin-off, you might want to think again.
This may not quite be up there with the best films about mental illness of all time, alongside the likes of Psycho and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . But it’s close.
Joker: Folie a Deux will be released in the UK on October 4, 2024.