“Folie à Deux” is a miserable musical slog

At some point in the last few years, a particular meme-like social media post format became popular: someone posted someone saying something that was completely self-contradictory or self-defeating, something so obviously crazy or ridiculous that no sane and sensible person could could do accept it.

Given the timing, this was likely at least partially the result of the 2019 film jokeran origin story that portrays Batman's nemesis as a dark, desperate, depressed loser who freaks out in response to an uncaring, ugly world that seems shapeless and out of control.

Well, I'm here to tell you that I saw the sequel, Joker: Folie à Deuxand that it is such a sluggish, joyless, and unpleasant slog that I find it difficult to imagine how it came to be, or to plausibly imagine what any reasonable person might have been thinking during its development or production.

Joker: Folie à Deux is a two-hour-plus, uneventful recap of the events of the previous film. Nothing happens. The first joker was ugly in spirit and essentially thematically lacking, but there was at least a steady progression leading up to a moment where the titular character would finally fully manifest. There is no such progression in the sequel and in fact there is very little narrative at all. It's mostly just a recap of the first film, plus a few disappointing musical numbers in a courtroom. It is lifeless, pointless and humorless throughout.

How did this film even come about? Only-How?

Dear readers, I am becoming the Joker.

Unfortunately, the obvious answer to this question is probably the first joker The film grossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office and also earned it a few Oscar nominations, a rare feat for a dirty R-rated comic book film. This necessitated a sequel and gave director and co-writer Todd Phillips more control.

And what Phillips apparently wanted more than anything was a feature-length rebuke to fans of the first film, particularly fans who thought Arthur Fleck — the sad, disturbed, lonely man who becomes a famous murder clown — was one Kind of cool.

The first film also touched on this theme, portraying the rise of the Joker as somewhat of a cautionary tale about the viral appeal of crazy people who commit sensationalistic acts while being egged on by the media. It wasn't a good film, but Joaquin Phoenix's gaunt, menacing portrayal of the title character was full of anarchic energy, and his Martin Scorsese-inspired depiction of 1980s New York made a great backdrop for the story of a desperate clown who goes murderously insane.

For the sequel, Phillips chose to return to the events of the first film, revisiting them in conversations between Fleck and his lawyer in a sensational television interview and ultimately in a trial that takes up much of the second half of the film. At every point where Phillips could have moved the story forward or allowed something to happen, he slams on the brakes and instead demands that the film look backwards. It's an extended mockery of a film that spends most of its time not only recapping how terrible its main character is and was, but also insisting that if you, as a fan, enjoyed the first film, you probably will too will do.

To this dull structure, Phillips adds two new, related elements. First up is Lady Gaga as Joker's crazy flame Harley Quinn. Second, and probably because of the first, the sequel is a musical of sorts, with a handful of standard vocal numbers illustrating Fleck's deteriorating mental state. Gaga's job is to sign and look good, and she does both reasonably well. But apart from a pyromaniac meeting with Mr. J., the film hardly gives her anything to do.

Yet she is the only character with anything resembling a story arc or transformation: in the end she becomes Harley Quinn, Joker's tormented sidekick and lover. But her climax comes when she finally shows up in clown makeup and costume, a camera-ready reflection of her superfan obsession: in that moment, she also becomes the Joker.

Quinn was introduced three decades ago Batman: The Animated Seriesa children's animated series that also offered surprisingly sophisticated interpretations of the caped crusader and his strange villain's gallery. It located the rude and loutish characters of the Joker and Harley Quinn not in their tortured biographies or their broken psychologies, but in their crazy, twisted, comically violent actions and interactions with one another.

In retrospect, it serves as a counterpoint to Phillips' dark, literal mythologizing. The series' lewd, menacing and playfully psychopathic Joker, voiced with maniacal glee by Mark Hamill, was fully realized rather than fully explained. The madman didn't catch him. He was the crazy guy who got everyone else.

In other words, he didn't become the Joker – just him Was the joker.

It is a far more frightening way to explain the persistence of madness in the world, the terror of the violent unknown. And in its implied reversal of the meme, it suggests a troubling possibility: Maybe we've all been the Joker all along, rather than suddenly grappling with the madness of a crazy world.