Review: Joker: Folie a deux

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

While I wasn't particularly a fan of Todd Phillips' first "Joker" movie, I could admire Joaquin Phoenix's committed performance and its visual style, clearly trying to mimic the 1970s films of Martin Scorsese or Sidney Lumet. One of my complaints with the film was its seeming self-importance; that it was a facile film that thought it was making a big statement. 

While its sequel, "Joker: Folie a deux," is technically a riskier venture - hell, it's sort of a musical - it also just feels, well, lost. My objection is not so much that it is a musical - in fact, there's a decent enough argument as to why that might have worked - but that the filmmakers once again think they are doing something so daring by making it one.

Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is by all accounts a deeply disturbed individual who often lives in a world of fantasy. If you think about it, musicals are movies in which characters suddenly exit the land of reality by breaking out into song and dance that is often choreographed and scored to music. Therefore, making this film a musical could have been an interesting way of approaching Fleck's story.

The film picks up where the other left off, that is with Fleck in a mental institution, where he's mocked and occasionally abused by the guards. His lawyer (Catherine Keener) seemingly has sympathy for him and is trying to ensure that he doesn't go to trial on the grounds that he is mentally ill. However, Arthur meets a woman named Lee (Lady Gaga) - short for Harley Quinn - in the institution and the two begin a, ahem, bad romance.

Lee appears to be a Joker fan and quickly endears herself to him. She encourages him to take control of his own narrative and, against all good judgement, he decides to fire his lawyer and defend himself in court. If making the film a musical seems like a strange choice, making its second half a courtroom drama is even weirder.

For starters, Phoenix, once he begins acting as his own counsel, speaks in the voice of a southern man for no apparent reason. His theatrics are occasionally tolerated in the courtroom to unbelievable lengths. At the end of all this, something happens that enables Arthur to be out on the streets, all leading up to an ending that will likely leave most people scratching their heads.

I'll say this: Phoenix again remains committed to this character and Gaga is pretty decent herself. It's too bad they're left to navigate this film full of strange choices without better direction. At various points in the film, Fleck laughs his bizarre, unnatural laugh - and like it did in the last film, it feels too forced, much like most of "Joker: Folie a deux."