Judging by the poor reviews and abysmal box office, there aren’t too many die-hard fans of “Joker: Folie à Deux.” It appears that director Todd Phillips has created a film that upset both the people who loved and hated the previous “Joker.” However, if he cares about any review, perhaps he’ll prefer to hear what someone like Quentin Tarantino has to say.
Speaking on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, Quentin Tarantino talked about his thoughts regarding “Joker: Folie à Deux.” He didn’t just like the “Joker” sequel, Tarantino absolutely loved the movie. In fact, he went on to praise Joaquin Phoenix by saying the actor gave “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life in this movie.” But that’s not all.
“I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously, and I went to see it expecting to be impressed by the filmmaking. But I thought it was going to be an arms-length, intellectual exercise that ultimately I wouldn’t think worked like a movie, but that I would appreciate it for what it is,” said Tarantino. “And I’m just nihilistic enough to kind of enjoy a movie that doesn’t quite work as a movie. That’s like a big, giant mess to some degree. And I didn’t find it an intellectual exercise. I really got caught up into it. I really liked the musical sequences. I got really caught up. I thought the more banal the songs were, the better they were.”
As for influences he noticed in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Tarantino pointed out that the film felt a lot like his own “Natural Born Killers.”
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“As much as the first one was indebted to ‘Taxi Driver,’ this seems pretty fucking indebted to ‘Natural Born Killers,’ which I wrote. That’s the ‘Natural Born Killers’ I would have dreamed of seeing, as the guy who created Mickey and Mallory. I loved what they did with it. I loved the direction he took. I mean, the whole movie was the fever dream of Mickey Knox.”
Typically, you’’ll see filmmakers say nice things about other filmmakers just because it’s impolite to really trash someone else’s art in a public forum. However, what Tarantino does when talking about “Joker: Folie à Deux” goes above and beyond just pleasant courtesy. He truly feels like the film is one of the best of 2024. It’s pretty mindblowing.
