Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019) was a billion-dollar box office hit. It received 11 Oscar nominations and went on to win two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score and one for Best Actor.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker character achieved what no one thought could be possible -- to rival or top Heath Ledger’s unforgettable performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), a career-topping role that earned him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix brought their own unique vision and collaborative chemistry to the table with spectacular success. Everyone wondered if they would ever return to the story material. Their Jokerwould be a hard act to follow, as they say in show business.
The simple solution would have been to just serve up more of the same successful elements that worked so well in the original. No one would have complained. The stage was set to stay on safe ground and simply give audiences more of what they wanted. Most movie sequels are content to do just that. While many of them fail, they still manage to make money and making money is the name of the game in the business of moviemaking.
It's noteworthy that this is precisely what Todd Phillips chose not to do with his Joker follow-up. Granted, the story picks up where the first movie ended, Arthur Fleck (The Joker) has been arrested and is on his way to prison to await trial for multiple murders, including one committed on live national television.
While the storyline is familiar, the entire approach to the storytelling is radically different. Most notably, portions of the script are sung by the movie’s main characters (The Joker/Arthur Fleck played by Joaquin Phoenix and his love interest, Lee Quinzel, played by Lady Gaga). It’s a dramatically different direction to go in terms of story development. Die-hard fans had serious doubts when word started leaking out about Todd Phillips creative choices. It was a radical departure from his approach in Joker, which largely played by the rules of cinematic adaptation of comic book characters.
It's a high-risk decision that works in Joker: Folie a Deux. While the movie musical device of characters abruptly breaking into song and dance numbers can be jarring, here they interface with the story arc in a way that flows together seamlessly. It’s a bold stroke of creative genius that makes you wonder how Phillips ever managed to pitch the idea to studio heads and financial backers.
The singing and dancing work. The dark, rich, moody cinematography and art direction create a murky, frightening world that feels tangibly terrifying. Joaquin Phoenix turns in another Oscar-worthy performance, start to finish. It’s a master class in fearless, flawless performance technique. Lady Gaga steps up to her challenging role as Joker’s dream girl.
What’s missing here is the brisk, energized pace of the original film. In this case, the plot is surprisingly sparce and the pace is heavy and slow. While this might tank other similar movies with sky-high audience expectations, the saving grace here is the power of the performances. Joker: Folie a Deux is a character-driven movie that makes the most of its talented cast. In particular, Phoenix, who digs deeper into the dark, twisted soul of Arthur Fleck’s split personality than he did the first time around, and he manages to once again mine pure gold.
Joker: Folie a Deux is not what you might expect, not by a long shot. The best way to enjoy it is to dry erase everything you thought about the first movie and accept this movie on its own terms. The tone is entirely different. The plot doesn’t go where you might expect that it will. The ending will probably leave you blinking your eyes in total disbelief. It’s a movie sequel that isn’t afraid to break its own rules in the expansion and extension of a modern-day screen icon.
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