Now incarcerated in Arkham State Penitentiary, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) struggles with his dual personality as Joker. Is he mentally unstable switching between these roles or fully in control of his actions? As he struggles with this and his impending trial he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) at a class that tries to teach patients to deal with their emotions through singing. 

Joker: Folie a Deux is an enigma. The 2019 original Joker grossed over $1 billion at the box office, won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival and gave Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar for acting. It was a huge success and a cultural phenomenon. So co-writers Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, who also acts as Director for both features have decided to use that success to do something completely different within the confines of the DC comics safety net. Adding two more huge DC characters to the call sheet in Harley Quinn and Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) they have chosen to make a musical with their household names focusing on whether Joker is a knowing creation of Fleck’s mind or part of a mental illness. And further to this, whether Joker belongs to Fleck now that he has become a cult personality after the events of the first film. 

The results are mixed at best. However describing the 2019 film as original in the previous paragraph as far as I am concerned is a misnomer. As much as I enjoyed it and consider it a good film I find myself frustrated that many people will be unaware of just how much Silver and Phillips are riding on the coat tails of Martin Scorsese’s brilliant The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. And those are not the only films it is derivative of. So how can I complain when they attempt to do something that is original? I find this incredibly frustrating also because I wanted to enjoy this film and considered the musical idea to show the characters’ mindset a fascinating choice. But they fumble it at every opportunity muddling the message and mismanaging the musical staging. 

Arthur interacts with a number of new characters within the walls of Arkham. Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) is the guard who fancies himself a singer and seemingly brings Arthur to the class for his own benefit. Jackie is sporadically nice to Arthur but only if it suits him. Otherwise he is brutally hard on him. Maryanne Stuart (Catherine Keener) is Arthur’s attorney who is desperately pushing the mentally unstable line of defence to try and clear her client. This puts her at odds with Arthur as he struggles with whether he considers Joker a part of him or not. Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan) is another TV personality who wants to interview Joker and is disappointed to get Arthur Fleck. He really represents the same type of character that Robert De Niro’s Murray Franklin did in the first film. And finally there is Lee Quinzel played by Lady Gaga. This version of Harley Quinn is unlike any version of her character I am aware of and frustratingly for a singer of such talents not given as much to do as she probably should. 

Phoenix does a commendable job despite his character seemingly being more in love with smoking cigarettes than Harley Quinn. Lady Gaga is criminally underused and struggles to develop her character’s motivations. Both Coogan and Keener do their best with one note characters. Whilst Gleeson probably comes out with the most interesting new role in the film.  

The largest negative is that the message and the musical nature of the film are both muddled and sub-par. I came out of this film with little more insight than I did from the first film and knowing for sure that Todd Phillips should not direct a musical. 

The outcome is a film that will not please anyone. Fans of the original will not find anything similar enough. Fans of musicals will not find anything particularly well staged or featuring show stopping moments. Fans of the DC Comics will probably find the use of Harley Quinn slightly perplexing. And for people like me who wanted something original to shine through and challenge mainstream audiences? Well we will be bitterly disappointed that this is what they will think is auteur cinema. 

I will leave you with the final sentence of my review of 2019’s Joker…

“I hope DC and Warner Brothers are wise enough to leave it as a stand alone film.”