Folie à deux” takes the opposite view of the first part

The new film with Joaquin Phoenix, in theaters this Wednesday, defies the expectations of fans of the first part.

Expected for almost five years, the sequel to Joker hits theaters this Wednesday. Announced as a musical film, with pop superstar Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, this blockbuster subverts, like the first part, the codes of the superhero film and offers a provocative reinterpretation of Batman’s sworn enemy.

Still directed by Todd Phillips (Very Bad Trip), and carried by a Joaquin Phoenix more sickly than ever, Joker: Folie à deux takes the opposite view of the first film, in which it tramples all the promising avenues. As if Folie à deux was designed to thwart expectations and above all disappoint, even annoy fans of the first film.

Terrifying character

This particularly daring choice, and completely unprecedented in the history of contemporary blockbusters, where sequels are increasingly criticized for their lack of originality, disconcerted the Anglo-Saxon press after the film’s presentation at the Venice Film Festival. To understand this decision, we must go back to the release of Joker in 2019.

Joker ended with the triumph of its hero. A failed comedian, bullied by a stifling mother and despised by society, Arthur Fleck took his revenge by establishing himself as an anarchist hero setting fire to the powder and breathing a wind of revolt into Gotham.

A destiny in accordance with this terrifying character, imagined in 1940 by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson and inspired by The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. In 2007, in the midst of the “war against terror” and Al Qaeda, Christopher Nolan had already delivered in The Dark Knight a memorable interpretation of the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) as an elusive terrorist who randomly commits attacks to destabilize Gotham.

Potential overflows

In the midst of the Trump presidency, in 2019, the Todd Phillips version of the Joker also captured the spirit of the times by drawing inspiration from the rise of populism against a backdrop of gaping social inequalities. But the film, awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, sparked fierce criticism of its violence, sometimes considered gratuitous, and “the dangerousness of its treatment of the psychopathic hero, considered too light”, recalls Libération.

Joker had thus been accused of presenting his “hero” as a model for mass killers and incels, a portmanteau word “involuntary celibate”, designating men who express their hatred of women online. The FBI was concerned about potential spillovers onto American soil. And the premiere of the film took place under police surveillance.

Everyone feared “copycat killers”, killers imitating fiction. Taxi Driverone of the influences of Jokerhad himself inspired the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Warnock Hinckley in 1981. And in 2009, Fight Clubanother film popular with incels, incited a teenager to plan a pipe bomb attack in New York. No overflow inspired by Joker however, was not observed.

Mute character

Five years later, Joker: Folie à deux comes out in a context just as tense as in 2019, in the middle of the electoral campaign, when candidate Donald Trump was targeted by two assassination attempts. And if Todd Phillips said at the Venice Film Festival that his new film was “not a response to the criticism” of the first film, Joker: Folie à deux aims to destroy the fascination aroused by Arthur Fleck among many incels, by reshaping the character.

The plot of Joker: Folie à deux begins two years after the first part. Interned in Arkham Asylum, where he wasted away, Arthur Fleck is tried for the five murders committed in the first part. He decides to defend himself while he forms a romantic relationship with a woman fascinated by him and his terrorist acts, Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga).

In Folie à deuxthe Joker no longer appears as a dangerous sociopath or an anarchist anti-hero revolting against an unjust and dehumanizing system. On the contrary, the character is often silent and slow, like the film. He is nothing more than a shadow of himself before regaining a taste for life thanks to love.

The violence has also completely disappeared on the screen – with the exception of the introductory scene, a cartoon style Looney Tunes imagined by French director Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville). The Joker confronts his inner self, symbolized by a shadow with murderous impulses.

Lady Gaga appearing

While he arouses the fascination of some of the inhabitants of Gotham and Harley Quinn, Arthur Fleck actually wants to show his true face. Defying the doctors’ predictions that he was crazy and schizophrenic, he insisted to everyone that he presented himself as an ordinary man. “There is no Joker,” he admits at the end of his trial. A statement which arouses the astonishment of his supporters and of Harley Quinn, who abandon him. And leads him to a tragic fate.

This choice deeply disappointed critics. Especially since it adds nothing to the story, deplores in particular on the site Indiewire critic David Ehrlich. “The film is cheeky in subverting expectations (…) but it didn’t think enough about what could be more interesting instead (…) It seems like they did it on purpose a bad film. It’s a meaningless film designed to annoy fans and annoy others.”

Todd Philipps also defies expectations by reducing Lady Gaga to a figurative state. While Joaquin Phoenix is ​​in every shot of this 2h20 film, several characters from the Batman universe, from prosecutor Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) to the jailer of Arkham Prison (Brendan Gleason), steal the show from Harley Quinn.

During the Joker’s trial, the actress is condemned to sit among the courtroom public without doing anything, critic David Ehrlich further denounces: “In theory, it is a devilishly chaotic idea to annoy the public to relegate Lady Gaga to the margins , (but) in reality, this decision (…) is a far more criminal act than anything Arthur Fleck does in this film.”