This American thriller is a sequel to the 2019 film, “Joker”, which starred Joachin Phoenix in his Academy Award winning role as “Joker”.
JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Zazie Beetz, and Brendan Gleeson. Directed by Todd Phillips. MA15+ Restricted. (Strong themes and violence). 138 min.
Review by Peter W. Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
The film is a sequel to Todd Phillips’ comic book thriller movie, “Joker”. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, and he is joined by Lady Gaga as his lover, Harley Quinn. The film recounts how Joker met Harley Quinn, and is directed by the same Director (Todd Phillips), who guided the 2019 film. The 2019 movie was loosely based on DC Comics characters, but the connection in this film is far looser. In this movie, Zazie Beetz briefly reprises her original role as Harley Quinn.
The 2019 film focused viewers’ attention on Arthur Fleck, as a failed clown and inspiring comedian. Now, Joker, is a mentally ill person institutionalised in a mental hospital, awaiting trial and facing the death penalty for murdering five people. The film pointedly explores Joker’s psyche as a misunderstood comedian, who desperately seeks love and acceptance. In the hospital, Arthur Fleck forms an obsessive love relationship with Harley Quinn, who is attracted to him.
The title of the film refers to the destructive relationship established between two traumatised individual- Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn. The film’s sub-title is French for “madness of two’, and what the sub-title signals, formally expresses a shared delusional belief system, that is “transmitted” from one person (Arthur) to another (Harley). The term “Folie a Deux” in this movie refers to two people living and sharing their delusions with each other. Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga capture the nature of their mental disturbances in a dramatically compelling and convincing way. The film is a psychological thriller intended as a stand-alone movie, and is not a integral part of the DC Comic Universe at all. It imbeds its thrills in a format, deftly using fantasy input at times, where Joker locates the “music” that he believes lies inside him as a creative force. This is a film that gives the character of Joker, and Joaquin Phoenix as Actor, an entirely new look.
Phoenix is an actor who frequently takes roles that explore the dividing line between sanity and madness – reminding one of the outstanding performance he delivered in the brilliant 2013 film, “Her”, where he dissociatively imbeds the input provided by the computer voice of Scarlett Johansson into his delusional belief system. In this film, he once again explores what separates reality and insanity and Phoenix excels as a traumatised Joker. Did he kill those people, or was it a dissociated personality inside him, called Joker, who was responsible? This creative film extends Joker as a fantasy figure in thoughtful and engrossing ways, under the same Director as before. Phoenix and Lady Gaga, who sing, act, and occupy the main roles, are quite exceptional.
Peter W. Sheehan is an Associate of Jesuit Media