Joker: Folie A Deux Review – Phoenix and Gaga Impress in Flawed Sequel

Todd Phillips’ Joker has always thrived in chaos, and Folie à Deux brings that chaos to colorful, cacophonous new heights. From the gleefully demented opening number—which sees the Clown Prince of Crime cavorting through a bygone Hollywood depicted with a lust for violence unlike anything Disney ever dreamed up—it’s clear Phillips has no interest in recreating the realist grit of his breakthrough. Rather, he graffiti-tags Scorsese’s grim Gotham with pop psychedelia, daring viewers to extract meaning from the mayhem.

What meaning there is comes, as ever, through the cracked lens of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix, who croaks melodies like a man exhuming old wounds). Incarcerated at Arkham Asylum since the so-called “Gotham Uprising,” Fleck has retreated into muted catatonia—until encountering Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga, vivacious even in downtrodden drag), an “enthusiast” who sees in him not a man but an icon. Their Folie à Deux blossoms into deranged duets that stage unnerving exposure therapy through Kander and Ebb’s barbed standards.

If this new Joker explores, as its title implies, the madness of co-dependence and the malice of toxic fandoms, it also makes me question reviewing itself: who are critics to separate “art” from “entertainment” in a world that celebrates the latter by incinerating the former? By tapping pop’s hypnotic frequency to fuzz such lines—e.g., with a certain Bee Gees number that doubles as seduction and indictment of those it seduces—Phillips plays a long con on his audience, for which I can only doff my cap.

A Tale of Two Patients

In outlining Folie à Deux’s plot, one witnesses the collision of two fractured minds within Gotham’s walls. Incarcerated these two years since hoisting mayhem to high art, Arthur Fleck inhabits a Sisyphean purgatory, endlessly scrubbing his cell as guards demand the laughs he no longer finds. Isn’t it curious, muses our critic, how societal demands of the clown continue even in captivity? We see in these early scenes Fleck withdrawing within himself, having long rejected the role imposed upon him.

It is within the drab confines of Arkham Asylum that Fleck’s routine first encounters disruption, coming through unlikely contact with fellow inmate Harleen Quinzel. Known simply as “Lee” within the colorless asylum walls, Quinzel nevertheless radiates an alluring spark of unrestrained id that her fans adore, though Gaga downdresses it for this darker role.

A self-professed loyalist to Fleck’s infamous alias, Quinzel makes plain that hers is no humanitarian concern for the man but rabid fixation on the symbol he became that fateful eve.

In fantasias staged through song, their unlikely duet blossoms—much to the chagrin of Fleck’s defender Maryanne, who knows such devotions risk undoing the delicate separations on which their defense strategy hinges.

For in courts soon come, debate rages on the nature vs. nurture dichotomy underlying all madness. Violence itself, argues the prosecution, need not be a be a birth pathology—might its practitioners simply emerge thus? Or did trauma twist Fleck from the start, as flashbacks staged through witnesses called paint his past in shades increasingly familiar?

If the first Joker invited interpretation, Folie à Deux demands it through such provocations. In crafting Quinzel, moreover, as a funhouse mirror onto society likewise fractured, Phillips ensures we see reflected back our own fragmented perceptions of this endlessly compelling case.

Dark Deeds Done to Ditties

No stranger to uniting unlikely genres, writes Arash Nahandian, Todd Phillips proves once more a maestro of tonal juxtaposition. From Fleck’s nightmarish routine awakened by Billy clubs and barbs to Quinzel hallucinating a brighter tomorrow in song, the director marries Gotham’s grimmest with musical theater’s blithest through deft, discordant stitches. His balance of dark grit and lighter song transcends either alone, finding poetry in profanity much as Scorsese did with “Goodfellas,” lamenting how dreams dry up like raisins in the sun.

In the role he was born to inhabit, Joaquin Phoenix finds new shadings to Fleck’s broken psyche, opines our critic—croaking classics in a voice as weathered as his character’s soul. If sometimes overshadowed by thespian tour-de-forces past, like his utterly transformational work as Johnny Cash that had even this literary cynic moved (“Walk the Line” remains among biopics best), Fleck remains this generation’s most compelling study in madness, a danger to none yet villain to all due solely to condition beyond control.

As his object of fixation, Lady Gaga embraces the seedier side of her stardom, shunning prowess and couture for a portrayal of pathology uniquely unpolished that feels less stunt and more service. Her raw vocals fit Lee/Quinn’s fantasies of love and purpose amid the damp gloom.

Yet even here concerns emerge around which songs seem to serve character over narrative propulsion, as meditations on bygone showtunes like “Pal Joey” feel poached from YouTube rather than springing from psyche.

Perhaps had Phillips and Gudnadóttir’s score stressed Fleck and Quinzel’s fractured psyches through its swells and sting alone, their everyman voices could’ve remained welcome ballast, tethering each surreal interlude back to earth. As is, a certain inconsistency pulls one’s suspension from this odyssey in American madness, even if its spirit remains crass, provocative, and strikingly sui generis.

Bringing the Dark into the Light

With a prowess rarely matched outside cinema’s finest auteurs, Lawrence Sher enrobes The Joker’s dystopic dreams in hues hauntingly filmic. Wringing thriller’s tensions from scenes most would shoot clinically, Sher transports viewers into Fleck’s fractured psyche, giving visual substance to its inner torment through striking chiaroscuro. Ever the aesthete, our critic remains in awe of any film so luminously photographed that one feels woven—however disparately—into the very celluloid itself.

Bringing the asylum and its inhabitants to such vivid life requires an equally masterful production design touch. Under Mark Friedberg’s hand, Arkham shifts between sterile nightmare and grotesque artwork, its walls rotating portraits from Fleck’s own deranged funhouse.

Quinzel’s cell too transforms in fleeting yet poignant moments, ranging from drab confinement to glitzy spectacle—all through deft aesthetic flourishes capable of such incisive characterization that their creative merits warrant singular acclaim.

Finally emerging as a maestra of unsettling scores, Hildur Gudnadóttir again establishes the aural language of madness through otherworldly melodies. Her compositions weave an ethereal danse macabre, seizing frayed nerves and dragging willing viewers spiraling into the heart of Fleck’s haunted waltzes. Much as Zimmer hammered “Inception’s” propulsive dynamics into the mind’s ear or Williams painted “Schindler’s List” onto celluloid itself, Gudnadóttir etches Fleck’s torment in indelible tones worthy their own symphonies. Without such artistry elevating visuals and sound alike, a film exploring the darkness within might dwell instead in its shadows. That Joker floats us into its light remains a technical triumph deserving the highest praise.

Reflections in a Funhouse Mirror

Delving into Folie à Deux’s thematic funhouse feels akin to watching society’s fracture reflected back through art. For in crafting Harleen Quinzel a funhouse mirror onto a world fractured by the need to be seen through screens, Phillips compels us to examine our fascinations and how madness’ nature shapes identities as performance. Her adulation for fame impressed upon an outsider mirrors back fans craving validation through proxies, relegating individuals to types.

Much as mass hysterias throughout history have fashioned martyrs from lost souls, leaving their humanity obscured, Harley elevates the Joker as a symbol over man. Her fixation speaks to deficiencies in communities wherein uniqueness feels threatened, forcing minds to extremes for purpose.

Yet true analysis risks reducing complex issues to critique; when some comprehend madness not as a symptom but as a as a solution to pains, a just world leaves unsolved. Might society’s ills that foster Fleck and his acolyte beg greater compassion than condemnation?

Phillips’ ambitions to scrutinize such sprawling topics through one fractured psyche prove as uneven as Fleck’s own fraying grip, argues Nahandian, fleshing ideas but rarely piercing societal scabs to provoke and interrogate. Perhaps larger canvases best tackle issues as vast as what entertainment has become, fetishizing the violence it condemns with one hand while the other points fingers, and why rage feels the answer to a world unable to empathize or see itself reflected whole.

In crafting folly a mirror not just to madness but the very mechanisms of its spread, Phillips hints at profundities left alas incomplete. What hangs heaviest is not missed potential but queries left dangling—for in a world so fractured, might we strive less to divide than bridge disparate psyches, recognizing madness as a disease begging not just study but remedy? The theme most provocative if fleeting is hope that understanding, not absolutism, might cure what truly ails this Joker’s world.

When Sequels Stumble Down Familiar Paths

In considering Folie à Deux alongside its divisive predecessor, Phillips grappled with the unenviable task of following a film so singular it rewrote expectations. His solution: refashion Joker less man than idea, detached from gritty origins through flights of surrealism.

Yet familiarity breeds complications, muses our critic. Retreading archetypes like Madlove sans nuance recalls not Tarantino’s surprises but pseudo-sequels failing to innovate. Distancing Fleck from urban grit robs the visual motif’s impact; sans sociopolitical resonance, his plight drifts nihilism. Revisiting traumas feels redundant where growth existed.

More troubling emerges: reception concerns: did Phillips court past flames or douse them? If sequels survive on surprise, Folie à Deux suffers foregoing shocks for shock’s sake. It comments where its predecessor provoked, enticing fans sans fulfilling duties of provocation. Might bolder leaps justify risks for property reconfiguration norms?

In cinema, where franchises subordinate art, independence merits praise, admits Nahandian—yet independence excels at subverting staid through subtlety, not simulacra. Folie à Deux flirts with profundities its framework constrains, leaving gestalt half heard. Less tribute than missed opportunity for sociopolitical syllogisms Joker intimated in spades remains the greatest failing.

To Provoke, or Not to Provoke

Assessing Folie à Deux’s fitful fits of brilliance amid its unevenness, Phillips grasps the essence of provocation—its power and peril—yet fears fully realizing prowess won through controversy.

Repackaging trauma and toxic fandoms as homilies risks sanitizing psychosis’ bite. Rehashing cameos feels like a like a placeholder for inventions Phillips’ first outing intrepidly supplied. Caging scoundrels in endless seminars on themselves, society-shaped dampens firestarter potential.

Yet glimmers of greatness permeate—in fleeting social commentary; mirrors reflecting madness back on structures making monsters; Phoenix and Gaga’s blistering work ethic underneath artifice. Their dedication deserves films serving vision, not franchising facile.

In a world debating empathy versus retribution, might madness’ root causes begged excavation, not exorcism? What Joker grasped, its follow-up fumbles: blockbusters may shock, art provokes. Therein lies Joker’s singularity—and hope for futures harnessing controversy’s fuel for engines of real change.

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