After the success of “Joker” in 2019, Joaquin Phoenix returns in this “Joker: Folie à deux” with the feel of a musical comedy. The first part won a Golden Lion in Venice and offered an Oscar to the actor, who here has a passionate love affair with a fan, Lee Quinzel, played by Lady Gaga. A shaky sequel without madness.
In 2019, the first “Joker” amazed with its harsh, disturbing and subversive description of a poor guy, Arthur Fleck, slowly sliding towards madness to the point of killing six people and becoming the symbol of popular anger against established order. All set in the decadent Gotham of the early 1980s. A dizzying descent into hell that ideally resonated with the social tensions of our time. No follow-up seemed necessary.
This was without taking into account the greed of the producers who granted Todd Phillips a tripled budget for this “Joker: Folie à deux”, beginning two years after the first part. We find a rickety Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), languishing in a cell in Arkham Penitentiary, awaiting trial for the murders committed under the identity of the Joker. There, he meets another resident, Lee Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga), an absolute fan with whom he immediately falls in love. A romance links the two psychopathic lovebirds and offers Arthur the opportunity to be loved for the first time in his miserable existence.
The love of a woman and a crowd
Quickly adopting the tone of a musical, where the tunes of great classics (“The Band Wagon”, in particular) illustrate this love that Fleck fantasizes, “Joker: Folie à deux” never ceases to thwart the expectations of its audience. Already with a prologue in the form of a cartoon where the Joker becomes a victim of his own shadow, then a first hour which develops the romance between Fleck and Quinzel before an interminable trial where it is a question of determining the mental health of the accused.
We understand the interest that led Phillips and his performers to engage in this very masterful sequel: confronting Arthur Fleck with the love of a woman and a crowd who have no use for his own identity. to only adore his Joker mask.
If we cannot criticize this sequel for straying significantly from its model, if we enjoy the musical numbers without moderation, and if Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix are impeccable in their respective roles, we remain more skeptical regarding the overall relevance of the story which seems to confuse shadow and mask, offering Arthur Fleck a capacity for self-analysis, if not not very credible, at least not very disturbing.
>> See the Vertigo cinema debate dedicated to the film “Joker: Folie à deux”:
Disappointment and boredom
From a seditious symbol, the Joker here becomes an abstract icon, a lure detached from any real reference, which the filmmaker overlooks instead of allowing himself to be overtaken by him. Hence the impression that this sequel imposes on its characters a preconceived, sociological, psychoanalytic discourse, rather than being contaminated, as was the case in the first part, by this atypical body with destructive and viscerally political nihilism.
And when, during a rather hasty finale, the motif of the shadow, not to say the double, catches up with Arthur Fleck, a motif that the film treats over the shoulder, we leave this shaky sequel with a mixture of fascination, disappointment and boredom. A sequel which, contrary to what its title indicates, lacks madness and chaos.
Rafael Wolf/eye
“Joker: Folie à deux” by Todd Phillips, with Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson. To be seen in French-speaking cinemas since October 2, 2024.
Note: 3/5
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