Joker: Folie À Deux
★★★★
starring: joaquin phoenix, lady gaga, brendan gleeson, and Catherine Keener​
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REVIEWER: lyall carter
Arthur Fleck is institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker.
You don’t get much bigger than 2019’s Joker. Not only was it the first R rated movie to crack a billion dollars at the global box office, but it was also the first movie based on a comic book for which its star, Joaquin Phoenix, deservedly received the Oscar for Best Actor. Pretty tough to follow in those illustrious clown shoes. Picking up right where it left off Joker: Folie À Deux is awe striking in the delightfully deluded fantasy it weaves with Phoenix once again mesmerising in all of his menace and madness.
Joker: Folie À Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalised at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.
While Joker: Folie À Deux begins in Arkham prison it doesn’t really travel that far narratively or geographically as it is essentially a tale of the criminal trial of Arthur Fleck. At a nearly two and a half hour run time that’s a lot to hang on a trial as simple as this one: it’s pretty obvious, Arthur Fleck killed five or was it six victims. Case closed?
But again director Todd Phillips isn’t just here to tell a comic book or even a court case story, he’s seeking to expose us to something more here. While the first outing was poignant and frightening in equal measure because of the themes of the ferocity of the forgotten neglected and rejected masses, Phillips is seeking to explore the themes of the mob as it slowly eats itself alive. What happens when the idea of the revolution turns out to be not as real as the mob believed?
Again, Fleck is caught up right in the middle of it all, a pawn in the hands of others, manipulated and abused again. There are some scenes that are not only physically brutal but also emotionally and mentally. It truly is frightening in places. But, for reasons I won’t go into here, I reckon, Joker: Folie À Deux will be controversial. Make sure you catch it before it gets spoiled.
Some also may have heard that Joker: Folie À Deux is some kind of musical. It isn’t really, in the truest sense of the word, and the way in which they do it fits perfectly here.
While Gaga is equal to anything Phoenix throws her way, this film again belongs to Phoenix. His physicality here is more pronounced than in the first outing, his frail, waif-like body matching the fragility of his mind which you can glimpse through Phoenix’s soul piercing eyes. His performance is immaculate and surely a front runner come awards season.
Picking up right where it left off Joker: Folie À Deux is awe striking in the delightfully deluded fantasy it weaves with Phoenix once again mesmerising in all of his menace and madness.