Joker: Folio a Deux (2024)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on October 13, 2024 @ tonymacklin.net.
Joker: Folio a Deux is a movie in search of a director.
It has its moments, but the director Todd Phillips doesn't take advantage of them. As a producer, he should have chosen a director who is more attuned with musical presentation.
Joker: Folio a Deux is a musical slog. A flamboyant ordeal. It's a musical without lilt. It has cumbersome antics, strained effects, and intrusive, heavy instrumentality. And it's long.
Joker: Folio a Deux is the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), Joker, and his relationship with Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who evolves into Harley Quinn. They meet each other in the music room of Arkham State Hospital, a mental institution. They sing and dance through chaos, brutality, and pursuit of love. They share emotional delusions in their minds.
Joker becomes a cult figure, and has a loyal following, and after committing brutal murders he goes on trial.
All the fervor is set to music - from classic songs and classic movies. The music is a bevy of memorable material - "If My Friends Could See Me Now," "Bewitched," "That's Entertainment," "That's Life," and scores of others.
The best directors have a consistent, personal vision beneath the surface of their movies. Under his style, Hitchcock had the themes of alienation and disconnection. Kubrick had the banality of the human race.
What is Todd Phillips' "vision"? As the director of three Hangover movies, is it guys trying to have fun?
Phillips discards what he had achieved in the successful, effective Joker (2019), mainly due to the palpable performance of Joaquin Phoenix who humanized madness.
In Joker: Folio a Deux, Lady Gaga gives a compelling performance, but Phoenix has lost much of the potency that was in the previous film.
Over time, Joker: Folio a Deux may gain more appreciation as people find out about the clever use of music.
In Batman (1989) Jack Nicholson's Joker asked, "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" In Joker: Folio a Deux, as Arthur goes back to Gotham he is accompanied by King Harvest's version of "Dancing in the Moonlight."
At the end of the film, we hear "True Love Will Find You in the End." It is crucial and ironic.
There are memorable moments, especially the surprise ending. But most are smothered.
Directors matter.