Joker: Folie à Deux Review

Joker: Folie à Deux is a sequel to Joker (2019), it comes directed by Todd Phillips who also directed the first film. This film sees Joaquin Phoenix return to his role as Joker. It also stars Lady Gaga with appearances from Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson, Zazie Beetz and Harry Lawtey.

When Joker came out in 2019, it was a movie that I really enjoyed. In fact I think it may have been my favourite movie of the year. However, I never really wanted a sequel to be made and I thought it was a good a standalone story. It seemed to me at the time, that if Warner Brothers/DC Universe could figure out how to make some really good standalone films of this quality, they might be onto something good. However, they didn’t figure this out, they instead chose to make a sequel to Joker (2019), which I think many people didn’t really want. Nevertheless though, I was still keen to have a look at what this film could be, even though I had heard it was a musical, which I don’t really like. I did think it was brave of them to attempt to make a Joker sequel as a musical.

Now that I’ve seen the film, I wouldn’t really describe it as a musical, but it does have many musical elements. There are times when the Joker or Harley will break out into song and start singing something. Although what they are singing about is part of the story and helps to create a narrative around the imagination that the characters have, I still found it annoying and wanted to skip through those scenes.

The movie, like the first one is a bit of a depressing watch. However unlike the first one where the Joker slowly awakens and has the world brighten up around him, this one doesn’t do that. This is not a hero’s journey to overcome anything. What this movie is, is about a guilty person having to face their crimes and take responsibility for what they did. The movie’s plot is focussed around a court room scene where the Joker is on trial for the crimes he committed in the first film. The problem with this though, is as an audience member we all know he’s guilty and there’s no tension there in any of those court room scenes. We all know what’s going on. He’s guilty, we all saw it.

I guess my thoughts about this film is that as it focusses on the aftermath of a crime and we essentially watch a guilty person have to face up to that, I do think if the filmmakers are trying to show the audience that crime is not glamourous and shouldn’t be glamourised. In the background of this film, you can see the people in the city idolising the Joker, the Harley character is drawn to him due his fame as a famous criminal. But as an audience member looking in, I feel like we all get the impression there’s nothing good out of all this. After watching this sequel, no one is going to like the character anymore.

The movie is an uncomfortable watch and many people are going to strongly dislike the experience. Sometimes there are films that do have an uncomfortable feeling to sit through. But this one is unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s depressing to watch, it’s sad to see the Joker character suffering and the world that this film is set in is horrible. I would have to watch this again to understand some things I may have missed and spend time discussing the film with some people, but in the end I don’t think I enjoyed sitting through this film.

I think modern film audiences are used to seeing the hero character succeed. We are used to watching films where a hero will go on a journey, struggle a bit and then through some internal strength or change in themselves, they overcome that. This movie is not a hero’s journey, it’s more like watching a character fail and go to complete decline in their life, it isn’t entertaining. It’s horrible to sit through. There’s no joy in it at all.

The actors I felt though, weren’t bad. I do think that Joaquin Phoenix was good as the Joker and I didn’t mind Lady Gaga either. They carried their characters well and in some scenes, I was starting to like them. The movie is unfortunately like a roller coaster. Where I feel that there are some shining scenes where the director had a good idea and then the next scene will be a bad idea. There were some scenes where I felt like the drama was getting good and I was thinking, actually this might turn around and be a good film from here on, but then it’s only for a short time. But then the energy from that scene or that idea just dies.

The film is a disaster, because I feel like it’s depressing and sad to sit through. It’s not all bad because there are some good moments in there somewhere, however there are only a few good moments. Joker: Folie à Deux is just overwhelmingly depressing to sit through and to see the character brought down to such a low level in this film is horrible. Joker: Folie à Deux almost completely destroys the first film too because now will know what happened to the character after that film ends. So how can we even enjoy watching Joker (2019) now.