Joker: Folie à deux review, VFF 1.3
*No Spoilers* The most anticipated film of the Venice Film Festival arrived and, as expected, divided opinions among those who are right and irrational.
How do you re-invent the wheel when you stole the designs of the first wheel to begin with? This is the problem of Joker: Folie à deux, Todd Phillips’ sequel to the 2019 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner starring Joaquin Phoenix and, this time, Lady Gaga. As Joker was the direct and indirect “inspiration” of two Scorsese classics (Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy), Phillips put himself into a bind for the French subordinate title follow-up—maybe this time its Goodfellas and Raging Bull, or maybe Who’s That Knocking at My Door and Silence?
The short answer is no, he didn’t re-invent, or event invent, much of anything, but that isn’t the point with these movies. Joker created and very successfully spread the word of its grittiness and realism to mass fan-based audiences uninterested in the polished climax of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which worked so well marketing-wise that it received over a billion USD and won Phoenix the Oscar. This will unlikely occur this time for several reasons: Joker: Folie à deux isn’t good, Phoenix is more constrained than before, Gaga severely under-performs (not her problem, see: screenplay and direction), and it isn’t the same genre, whatever that was for the first one too.
Where to begin? Quick plot summary: Joker has been in Arkham since the events of Joker. His life sucks and now he’s drugged and doesn’t laugh. His lawyer gets him a trial to declare split-personality insanity for the murders, which would swivel him past the death penalty. But first, Arthur meets a woman in the music class who has different plans for them both. He’s not alone anymore!
This is a musical, even with Lady Gaga trying to say that it wasn’t during the press conference (LOL—very much not a good sign when a mega-pop star is in a musical and doesn’t know that it’s a musical). One would think the involvement of an accomplished musician and splashy, upcoming actor that Folie à deux would have the best music of any musical this side of the clanging trolly. But each piece is a lame-duck attempt at Broadwayesque duets that all end up in the same unimaginative black background set. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s characters in La La Land had more creative vision between the two of them in one song compared to the clown prince of crime and his psychotic muse. None of the songs are catchy and one forgets about them before they finish.
Another genre that Folie à deux attempts is the courtroom drama, where a third or more of the film takes place just re-hashing the events of the first film. Riveting crime and gritty darkness! One of the fundamental problems of the film is that it really has no idea what it is. This could have occurred at the level of direction, or screenplay, or maybe in the fact that the novelty of Joker wore off over the last five years.
Because of this lack of vision, the biggest faux pas of Folie à deux was sidelining Lady Gaga as both singer and actor. What’s the point of having her if you won’t exploit those two skills to the nth degree? Once again, direction and screenplay to blame. Her character, Lee (as in Harleen Frances Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn—I do love that these characters get slight name changes each iteration), is the plaything of Arthur Fleck (Joker) without much motivation. She’s an object for Arthur to bounce his crazy off to see if anything sticks. Her character supposedly provides Arthur with the catharsis, or not, that he’s been looking for at Arkham while waiting for his trial date. But you’ll have to watch the ending to know what happens I guess.
What’s the thesis: following a fantasy will set you free, or not? Todd Phillips, the director of The Hangover trilogy, who has yet to make a good sequel, didn’t understand the point and, frankly, we shouldn’t help him.
But again, that wasn’t the point. It was always supposed to be the “populist” film that critics weren’t supposed to like because they are too woke or old or boring or stuck-up. Although they are true by accident (there exists a definitive bubble between the insider film-critic-media world and the public), the ultras of Joker will look forward to the negative reviews because it’ll fuel their fire even more. Get ready for the biggest who-gives-a-shit debate in a month when Folie à deux is released in theaters and the hive-mind swarms. But this time around, they will (probably) have neither the Venice Film Festival or Academy Awards on their side, and so they’ll have to trust the box office, which has gone so well for DC recently.
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