A point about the Joker – in all comics and screen incarnations – is that Gotham City’s resident Clown Prince of Crime is cleverer than he is funny. This tradition is upheld by Todd Phillips’ ingenious follow-up to his surprise hit Joker, a take on the character steeped in the urban psychopathy films of Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro. Yes, it’s about Joker sharing his madness with a reimagination of on-off girlfriend/victim/sidekick Harley Quinn – but it’s also about the insanity of trying to pull this trick off twice. A tertiary meaning of the deux in the title ties into the origin of the most dualist member of Batman’s rogue’s gallery.
Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is on trial for five murders he committed in the first film – he keeps trying to confess to a sixth – and torn between his meek, damaged core personality and Joker, whose in-film and real-world popularity despite a long history of violence and spite is a paradox Phillips thoroughly chews over. In Joker, Fleck didn’t realise how much of his daily life was imaginary – here, his flights of fancy are almost a superpower… and turn the whole film into a jukebox musical with the leads delivering a soundtrack album’s worth of cunningly-directed showstoppers while not breaking characater as semi-insane killer clowns.
Lady Gaga’s interestingly half-cracked Harley does ‘If They Could See Me Now’ so well you can hear execs greenlighting a Sweet Charity remake before the dust settles and Phoenix’s Oscar clip show-stopper is (what else?) Anthony Newley’s ‘The Joker’.
Studded throughout are moments of reality. Leigh Gill, as dwarf clown Gary, has a terrific witness stand scene which undercuts Joker’s fantasy (and that of his fans) by showing the appalling damage he’s inflicted on someone he hasn’t even killed (and actually likes). The Scorsese most referenced this time is New York, New York, but Phillips riffs also on Pennies From Heaven, Natural Born Killers, La La Land, Looney Tunes cartoons and any number of classic musicals. A risk is that there are so many borrowings that Folie à Deux is more a collage than a film, but Phillips’ bizarre, admirable ambition scotches any chances of a Joker franchise by following through to a logical conclusion.
Joker Folie à Deux is out now in cinemas
