Why “Joker: Folie à Deux” disappointed expectations

Making sequels mustn't be easy. But it must also be noted that no one, least of all a doctor, forced Todd Phillips to make one, especially if Joker: Folie à Deux was to be the result. The second film following the public and critical success of the 2019 movie, which earned the film the Golden Lion and Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar, this sequel, with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, arrives at the Lido for the 81st Venice Film Festival, with expectations and outcomes far from the original. For one, Folie à Deux was touted as a crazy jukebox filled with musical moments, and ultimately, it delivers a disappointing and shoddy mix of false themes and unexpressed ideas that Phillips and screenwriter Scott Silver managed to assemble. It's not even about disappointing expectations. At the Venice festival, Babygirl by Halina Reijn was previewed and initially sold as an erotic thriller reminiscent of the genre's glory days in the 80s. It wasn’t, by choice, as it dismantled the type of cinema it references, adapting it to contemporary times. Unlike the film with Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson, Joker: Folie à Deux does not astonish, precisely because it fails to offer an unexpected, but at least enjoyable, vision, instead seeming more likely to provoke anger and irritation from viewers, fans or not of the previous film.

The sequel to the story of Arthur Fleck, in prison at Arkham after the murder of five people (one on live television and another, the sixth, unreported), is indeed a bad film. Simply, inevitably a bad film. The element of surprise is precisely this. Not that the film fails to deliver musical sequences, with completely forgettable tracks and only one true iconic song that sticks in the mind: Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter. Unfortunately, this track was part of the first Joker, accompanying the memorable staircase scene. A musical effort that is barely musical, treated poorly, and fails to leave an impression. It’s fine to defy expectations, but this seems more like a stubbornness. Music is present in the most banal and irritating way possible, not integrated into the narrative fabric of Joker: Folie à Deux, but forced in, inserted insistently, using the device of dreams during sleep or daydreams imagined only in one’s head. Never truly incorporated, never original. It’s too easy to use a powerful tool like music, making it intrusive and unnecessary, merely thrown into the film haphazardly, here and there. Phillips and Silver missed the lessons from operations like Chicago - considering also the court scenes to which Arthur Fleck is subjected - where the musical numbers amplify the events and themes addressed in the film. Or, in general, all musicals, even the most experimental, quirky, and unconventional. A hugely wasted opportunity since it could have brought together potentially different audiences; DC fans, action lovers, and blockbuster enthusiasts, whose taste does not always align with musicals and, after Folie à Deux, might consider it a lost cause.

The problem with the new Joker is also thematic. While the 2019 film portrayed the transformation that led Arthur to become the jester of Gotham, depicting the creeping delirium of a society that, amidst injustices and dissatisfaction, culminated in the ultimate expression of violence, the sequel tries to delineate who is who. Failing, of course. It nullifies some of the significant moments from the first Joker, including the mirror dance - to Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score, which also composes the new, but faint soundtrack - where Arthur fully embraced the spirit of the clown that, up to that moment, he only carried the makeup of. A dance and physicality that become monotonous in Folie à Deux, bordering on irritating in their repetition over and over again. Meanwhile, the character of Harley Quinn, played by a talented but underutilized Lady Gaga, is introduced in a role that, due to the direction and depth provided by the script, could have been played by her or anyone else. The flat, confusing, and inconclusive nature of the character perfectly matches the ineffectiveness of the sequel. A groupie who is also a fanatic, who is also an opportunist, who is also a temptress wanting to bask in Joker's reflected glory. Not Arthur’s. Joker’s.

She fuels the distance between the two identities that, however, remain both unexplored. Of a shameful superficiality in light of the writing of the preceding film, almost nullifying everything that came before, perhaps with Todd Phillips’ understandable but questionable desire to overturn his own work. To subvert once again, as happened with the exaltation of the auteur blockbuster of Joker (preceded in cinema history only by Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy), the existence of a comic book character who, through the film, had entered a larger cinematic imagination. Trying to completely upheave things but ending up with nothing in hand, because not every gamble pays off, not with such high stakes. Only the animated prologue is saved, which we would have preferred to see as a standalone short rather than an introduction to Joker: Folie à Deux. The film wastes a Joaquin Phoenix who, if we want to hear him sing and see him take on a musical role, can still be enjoyed in Walk the Line, where he portrayed the singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. A film that focuses on performance and the fact that everything is entertainment. Everything except Joker: Folie à Deux.