When speaking about films in an increasingly saturated and click-hungry media landscape, very few descriptors are so rarely merited and so often used as “divisive.” But if there is one recent film deserving of the adjective, it is Todd Phillips’s “Joker.”
After a career built on directing American comedies like “The Hangover” and “School of Scoundrels,” Phillips turned his attention to a very different kind of comic to craft his take on the infamous green-haired villain. The resulting psychological thriller about the murderous mental breakdown of a failed clown turned failed stand-up comedian became an unexpected phenomenon, winning the main prize at the Venice Film Festival and amassing a whopping eleven Oscar nominations. The success, however, did not come without opposition, with many pointing out the film’s controversial approach to male mental health and the rise in violent sexist rhetoric in recent years. The great question was: Would Phillips’s “Joker” give incels their first great hero?
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Five years later, Phillips returns with an answer in “Joker: Folie à Deux.” If the first installment paid homage to two Martin Scorsese classics in “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy,” the follow-up edges the story closer to “New York, New York” territory in a musical that is not so much a musical as a self-aware emulation of one. Picking the story back up shortly after the events of the first film, the story begins at Gotham’s Arkham State Hospital, where an emaciated Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is getting ready for his murder trial. It is while on his way to meet his lawyer that he first lays eyes on Lady Gaga’s much-anticipated take on Harleen Quinzel, her voice echoing through the hospital corridors as she sings Ada R. Habershon’s “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.”
The Christian hymn speaks of reuniting with loved ones in heaven, but also of love itself. “In the joyous days of childhood, oft they told of wondrous love,” goes the song, and Fleck soon believes it is Harleen, or Lee, who will finally show him the kind of love he used to dream of as a child. A declared fan, she is one of many who saw themselves reflected in the anarchy of Arthur’s Joker. She watched the TV movie about his life twenty times, she says. She, too, would have wreaked havoc upon those who disrespected her. She can see the real him, even when others can’t.
It doesn’t take much flattery for the love-starved inmate to become entirely besotted, with Arthur making promises of a life together despite not knowing if he’ll even have one for much longer. This is because District Attorney Harvey Dent (a sadly scarce Harry Lawtey) heads into Fleck’s heavily publicised trial with his eyes set on the death penalty. Phillips places much of the film’s latter half at court, seesawing between prison thriller and courtroom drama in a smart choice that drastically separates “Joker: Folie à Deux” from the film that came before in how it grants audiences much-needed respite from the anxiety-riddled mind of the Joker.
This diluted intensity sees Joaquin Phoenix reprise his Oscar-winning role in a much more contained turn, a welcome change to those put off by the constant, annoyingly loud cackling that permeated much of the previous instalment. It also allows Phillips to spare a bit of time for a parade of supporting characters that go from Brendan Gleeson in excellent form as a chummy prison guard big on Catholic jokes and a less excellent Steve Coogan as a sensationalist TV presenter.
Still, those going into “Joker: Folie à Deux” for The Gaga Show are set for disappointment. Phillips does an interesting job interpreting the beloved character, turning Harley from puppet to puppeteer in a relationship with a pace entirely dictated by her for a change. This undoing of her longstanding image as Joker’s mopey, co-dependent partner proves fertile ground for Gaga, who roots Lee in charming assuredness. There is also, of course, the obvious fact that this is Lady Gaga in a musical. She twirls in a gorgeous mustard jumpsuit in a nod to ’70s Cher and beautifully sings her way out of a burning building with the charisma and confidence of one of the great performers. That there are so few of those big, bold Hollywood musical numbers is a great waste.
Of all the things Phillips does better in “Joker: Folie à Deux” than he did in “Joker,” the best is by far his course correction in catering to radical misogynists. The director isn’t subtle in his nods to the controversy stirred by the original, with Zazie Beetz returning for a scene written in direct response to the backlash her character suffered in the previous film and Fleck at last taking responsibility for his acts instead of passively letting others — structural or physical — take the blame. This sharp turn may cost the film some of its radical fans, but boy will it do wonders to convert the agnostics. [B]
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