Joker: Folie à Deux Review – Two Become One

Arthur Fleck and Joker become one in Joker: Folie à Deux, a sequel that manages to stay true to the character and let him grow without turning him into a fully fledged hero or villain.

We never get to see what happens to Arthur after the arrest, which is partly what makes the original film work so well. Even though it approaches the character with much more humanity and empathy than what previous portrayals have gotten us used to, it also doesn’t condone – nor does it glorify – his violent behavior.

In Joker: Folie à Deux, not only did director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver (Joker, The Fighter) have the difficult task of needing to show us what happens next without turning Arthur into a hero, but they also had to stay true to the multifaceted character we got to know in the first movie, acknowledge his past trauma, and avoid making him a fully-fledged villain. Astonishingly, Joker 2 manages to do just that, approaching the character with the same empathy while also letting him grow as the two sides of his personality become one.

Joker: Folie à Deux begins with Arthur Fleck behind bars, awaiting trial for the five murders – six, if we include his mother’s, but no one knows about that – he committed in the first film. Though he’s being bullied non-stop by inmates and prison guards alike, he seems to be handling it all very well. It’s a much more restrained character that we meet in Joker 2, and even his outbursts of laughter are almost completely gone, perhaps as a result of him taking his meds.

His lawyer, Maryanne (Catherine Keener, of The Adam Project), and his doctor’s line of defence is that Arthur has “another person living inside of [him], and that it was this other person who committed these crimes.” By keeping Arthur separated from the Joker – who has acquired a huge following and even had a TV movie made about him – Maryanne and Dr. Beatty are hoping to prove Arthur’s innocence and get him the help he needs.

As for Arthur himself, he isn’t quite sure yet. He has been doing better and avoided incidents, which even gets one of the guards (Brendan Gleeson, of The Banshees of Inisherin) to let him into a singing class in the minimum security ward, perhaps meant more as a prank than an act of kindness. But though it does feel like Joker’s still there, waiting to emerge again, joining the class still has a positive effect on Arthur, as that’s where he meets fellow patient Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga, of House of Gucci), and the two immediately fall for each other.

When asked what he remembers about the night he murdered talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), Arthur replies, “I remember the music.” And it’s with music that he expresses his feelings as he navigates love for the first time, in a romance that is not only not imaginary, unlike his past ones, but also with someone who’s just as much of an underdog as he is. Though most of these musical sequences take place inside Arthur and Lee’s heads, it doesn’t make their feelings any less real; Arthur has always been fascinated with the idea of performing, and Lee embraces this side of him too, joining him as he entertains imaginary audiences in his mind.

“I’ll tell you what changed: I’m not alone anymore,” says Arthur to interviewer Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan) right before the trial, having been asked a tricky question that was meant to take him off guard, but that, instead, shows us not only how much he’s grown but also how much of his former self is still there, underneath it all. It’s thanks to this newfound confidence that Arthur is able to make a surprising choice, not long after that, that eventually leads to the two sides of his personality merging into a whole. And it’s through this choice that Folie à Deux‘s message shines: Arthur will never be allowed to not be Joker.

When I first exited my screening of Joker 2, I was a little underwhelmed. But the more I kept thinking about it, the more I realized that it was simply because the film didn’t meet my expectations. Not much happens in Folie à Deux in terms of actual plot, as the film mainly revolves around Arthur’s trial and the development of his relationship with Lee in a series of key scenes between them. It’s also way less chaotic and deranged than I thought it would be, giving the titular antihero’s reputation in comic books. But then I realized that it’s precisely in this that Folie à Deux excels, with a cleverly restrained portrayal of its titular figure that, just like the first film did, subverts our expectations of what a Joker film should look and feel like.

There’s still chaos in this subversive sequel – only, it’s controlled chaos, reflecting the growth of a character that’s becoming more self-aware by the minute. It’s an empathetic, ultimately heart-breaking portrayal, and Joaquin Phoenix is outstanding. Though Lady Gaga doesn’t have as many scenes as Phoenix, she shines in every single one of them too, really showing her growth as an actress.

A few musical numbers could have been cut, but the songs featured in them perfectly capture the complex dynamics between our leads, made all the more effective by Gaga and Phoenix’s chemistry. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score is, quite simply, perfect, with the dark cues we know from the first film sneakily making themselves heard just when we need them to, letting us know exactly what Joker is up to even when he’s hidden underneath Arthur’s façade.

Joker: Folie à Deux is absolutely not what you expect it to be, but that’s not a bad thing. Todd Phillips’ film is the story of a man who refuses to be anything but himself right till the very end, and that’s what makes this Joker sequel so deliciously subversive.

Joker Folie à Deux had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2024 and will be released globally in theaters and IMAX on October 2-4, 2024. Read our review of Joker (2019)!