'Joker: Folie à Deux' Sets Out to Show the World’s Depravity, But Gives Up Much Before That

I might be able to pin-point the exact scene when director Todd Phillips and writer Scott Silver stopped trying in Joker: Folie à Deux. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) has just fired his lawyer (Catherine Keener) and insists on fighting his own case. He’s facing prosecution for the murder of five civilians (actually six – he also killed his own mother, which he casually reveals to people around him). A judge, who has reminded everyone about his revulsion for ‘theatrics’ in his courtroom, surprisingly allows Fleck to wear clown make-up while mounting his defence. He starts cross-examining a witness, Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill) – the sole witness to a murder, and Fleck’s former colleague. Our protagonist goes in absurd directions, making fun of the witness’s surname, speaking with a noticeable Southern drawl, barely holding on to a coherent argument. 

Till then, Phillips and Silver seem in control – alternating between a gritty prison drama, the thrill of legal machinations subverting logic, and confidently sprinkling musical elements over these. However, during this scene Fleck’s garbled argument doesn’t draw any objections from the opposing lawyer, and he’s only mildly chided by the judge to get back to relevant facts. 

It’s when the film feels like it needs to verbalise its ideologies – a lot of which feels muddled. There is a conversation to be had about mental illness, childhood trauma and how it contributes to criminal tendency. What’s the way forward – should they remain outcasts? Is it possible to cleanly segregate a person from their violent alter ego? Does one exist without the other? Fleck’s character doesn’t seem on the cusp of any such conversation, instead going around in circles about his sad, pathetic life – and the director (much like the judge) lets the film float away from him, copping out at a crucial moment. By now, I believe, Phillips is out of answers himself. 

A sequel to his 2019 blockbuster, Joker, and intended to be a grounded, Scorsese-esque character study of the iconic DC supervillain, Phillips’ film coasts on Phoenix’s frail, brittle shoulders. Arthur Fleck is serving time in Arkham asylum, with his lawyer preparing an argument about how the Joker is not who Fleck really is – it’s a case of split personality caused by childhood trauma. Fleck isn’t particularly taken by his own lawyer’s defence, but he goes along with it. He’s revelling in his new-found reputation as a messiah for the city’s oppressed, bitter anarchists – and he’s found a lover called Lee (Lady Gaga) in the psychiatric ward, who seems eager to impress him. 

Phillips gives his audience a refresher of the first film’s climax – in a Looney Tunes style cartoon recreation in the opening moments. It’s a bold choice, where Fleck and his alter-ego tussle it out backstage, but it’s the alter ego who steps under the arc lights and shoots the TV host. Quickly disappearing, it’s Fleck who is apprehended with the gun in his hand. Was Arthur Fleck awake, when the Joker blew Murray Franklin’s (Robert De Niro) brains out? That’s the question at the heart of the proceeding, led by a young Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey), seeking a death penalty. 

Todd Phillips, best known for his R-rated comedies before this, seems intent on refashioning his reputation as a filmmaker with the Joker films. Aided by Lawrence Sher’s stunning camera work, and Hildur Guðnadóttir abrasive sound of sorrow and loneliness, Phillips takes some big swings for a film this size. It probably helps that the first film did as well as it did, giving him a free hand. Investigating our society’s unhealthy relationship with scandal, grimy reality TV, and charismatic anti-heroes, Phillips seems closer to a decent Bollywood filmmaker, than the cerebral Hollywood filmmaker he wishes to be. He makes some compelling points – probing a society without hope, where people could hold on to anything that offers temporary respite from the way things are. 

But while the first Joker film promised a deep dive into the isolation of a deranged man, trying to find the light, the sequel gives up well before its destination. Lady Gaga – who has made some startling acting career choices – appears perfect on paper. But Lee remains alternating between a lunatic cheerleader and a flaky rich girl. Like in the first film, Phoenix doesn’t hold anything back, building on his incredibly physical performance. He sings and dances with the same abandon with which he smashes skulls, inflicts hurt on himself and laughs out of his belly. 

But all this razzmatazz can’t hide the film’s gleeful, thoughtless enjoyment of the violent circus called civilisation. Where people at the top patronise, condescend, oppress and invisibilise the people at the bottom. Phillips’s film would like to believe that its job ends at merely depicting the world’s depravity. But the more troubling thing is that it has stopped looking for answers. For a film that once believed in its cornered protagonist, now concludes that the world is insane and beyond saving. Joker: Folie à Deux is the feature-film equivalent of an all-caps tweet. If it can’t change the world, it might as well add to its insanity or quietly disappear after that.