{"id":1613,"date":"2024-10-09T01:50:32","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T01:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/?p=1613"},"modified":"2024-10-09T14:20:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:20:44","slug":"joker-folie-a-deux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/joker-folie-a-deux\/","title":{"rendered":"Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2019, Todd Phillips directed Joker<\/em><\/a>, (very) loosely based on the DC Comics Batman villain. Joaquin Phoenix played Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill societal castoff who finds a new identity in the Joker. The film itself was okay; it looked great and Phoenix was excellent. But it was also massively overhyped. It owed a lot to Martin Scorsese, too much, perhaps. If you\u2019ve seen Taxi Driver<\/em> and King of Comedy<\/em>, you\u2019ve seen two much better movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure plenty of regular moviegoers liked the film, but it also attracted a more weaponized crowd that responded to Joker\u2019s violence and middle finger to societal norms in ways that missed the point. Much like the people who didn\u2019t get that Fight Club<\/em> was a take down of toxic masculinity, not a celebration of it. We\u2019ll come back to these people in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em> takes place two years after the events of the first film. Fleck is in Arkham Asylum, awaiting his day in court for the murders he committed. There, he meets and falls in love with another inmate, Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga. (By the way, \u2018folie \u00e0 deux\u2019 means, \u2018shared madness\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let\u2019s get the positives out of the way. As with the first film, it looks great. It\u2019s well shot and there is some amazing production design. Phoenix is once again strong as Fleck\/Joker. Gaga is good too. I will also give Phillips credit for not just phoning in a sequel copy of the first movie, for trying something different. Unfortunately, while some may lambast it for straying too far from the blueprint, this isn\u2019t the reason Joker 2 didn\u2019t work for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The film, while not wholly unwatchable, is not good<\/em>. Its biggest sin is that it\u2019s excruciatingly boring. It\u2019s dramatically inert. Nothing really happens for the first hour and a half. Arthur Fleck mopes around prison and meets a girl. He prepares for his trial, then they start said trial (nice to see Catherine Keener as his put-upon lawyer and Brendan Gleeson as a prison guard though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film is also a musical, which feels inexplicable. The songs aren\u2019t terrible, though they are lyrically dead on arrival and performed very poorly for the most part. I assume the gritty delivery was on purpose, especially considering both stars can sing. There\u2019s no reason for this to be a musical, but the least they could have done was poured some imagination into the songs. The Joker in a musical? You could have gotten to Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em> levels of wacky creativity with the music. And because the songs don\u2019t do anything, they serve to drag the pacing of the movie down further. There\u2019s a whole lotta unnecessary<\/em> going on for a movie that\u2019s two hours and 18 minutes long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned Gaga earlier — she is somewhat inspired casting, whether it was a musical or not, taking over the now iconic Quinn role. However, Harley is shorted as a character; she\u2019s a cypher. In fact, I\u2019ll go one step further and say that this should have been Harley\u2019s story. We could watch her origin play out like we did Joker\u2019s in the first film, but all against the backdrop of Fleck\u2019s trial and the people mythologizing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a weird way, this movie made me appreciate the first one a little more (but not a lot). At least the OG Joker had something to say about things like society, mental illness, and political movements, even if it was a bit confused on its messaging. Folie \u00e0 Deux doesn\u2019t have much to say at all, and the themes it does have aren\u2019t explored well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where I go back to those more confused or toxic fans. In the first movie, Joker captured the imagination of young, disenfranchised people (mostly male incel types), who were willing to follow him into the breach. In a meta twist, the movie itself cultivated some of these people in real life, people who didn\u2019t get that the Joker wasn\u2019t really the hero of that movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let me ask you — who was Folie \u00e0 Deux for? Who, of these incels (that haven\u2019t seen a Scorsese movie), want a love struck musical where their hero is slowly deconstructed? Was this all a statement of some kind from Phillips? Was this intended to address the people that misunderstood the first film? A $200 million middle finger to the audience that drove Joker is a pretty high price to pay to make a point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I\u2019m sure some of them, like the Joker\u2019s followers in the movies themselves, will double down and follow the empty emperor\u2019s new clothes of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Folie \u00e0 deux, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, Todd Phillips directed Joker, (very) loosely based on the DC Comics Batman villain. Joaquin Phoenix played Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill societal castoff who finds a new identity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,57],"tags":[69,275,273,276,59,78],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-writing","tag-craig-silliphant","tag-incels","tag-joker","tag-joker-folie-a-deux","tag-movie-review","tag-movies","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/joker-2.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1617,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions\/1617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsilliphant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}