Joker: Folie à Deux

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For those who don't know, the Joker character is who I consider my favourite villain of all time. I say "character" because part of what makes him my favourite is how flexible he can be as far as portrayal goes. While there are so many similarities between so many different versions, they're all really quite unique in their own ways. I won't go through each and every one, but my personal favourites include Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Mark Hamill. I will admit, however, that Joaquin Phoenix could be added to that list... if it wasn't for this movie.

In the first 'Joker,' I truly appreciated the more dramatic take on it, bringing the mental health situation into play. Essentially, the origin story had a lot to say about the stigmas still attached to mental health problems, and the Joker, himself, ends up being a product of untreated mental health thanks to poor government funding. It was really well done, I appreciated to new take on things, and I enjoyed how they managed to combine his genuine creepiness with a bit of sympathy. It's no fun 'Batman' flick, but it was well executed.

A little time unfolded, discussions were had, word of mouth spread, and a lot of people even ended up making Phoenix their new favourite portrayal of the Joker. Then we all received that odd bit of news saying that the sequel would be a musical starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. That was a lot to digest. I was lukewarm to the idea of Gaga being Quinn, and the musical aspect felt odd. But even with all of that, I was still willing to give it a chance, recognizing that he musical aspect of things would tie into the mental health aspect of things, and play out as fantasy.

Joker, a.k.a. Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) awaits his trial for his crimes at Arkham State Hospital. His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) plans to use dissociative identity disorder as their defence, hoping to convince the judge that the Joker did the crimes of the previous movie, and not Arthur Fleck. This is pretty much the whole movie - awaiting the trial, and then the trial itself. All in all, at least in my humble opinion, it's kinda boring, and it drags. The only real saving grace could possibly be the arrival of Harleen Quinzel (Gaga), who calls herself "Lee" through the movie.

These two meet, not in therapy sessions conducted by Lee as a professional, but in the same hospital. It is mentioned that she has degrees in her field of psychology, but otherwise, here, she's just another patient. She comes to admire the way Arthur pulled off his crimes, and is in love with his destructive and chaotic personality. Real fans of Harley Quinn need not apply,. however, because this is about as far away from Harley as I can imagine, aside from a couple of very basic personality traits, which have already pretty much been mentioned.

While the whole trial portion of the film is a bore on its own, the rest of it is just Arthur and Lee putting on some kind of half-assed Broadway show about how much they love each other, and whether or not Lee can be trusted. If you're looking for a dark, violent movie with a dash of dark comedy, you are SOL here. There's a bit of violence, but it's completely crowbarred in, and any supposed jokes fall pretty flat here. And then there's the ending, which seems evidently controversial for fans, but even as a fan, I just plain didn't care either way.

I am going to be slightly controversial here, myself, and give the film credit for just one thing. Unfortunately, that one thing happens to be the risks they took with things here in trying something new and different. It flopped on its ass, but at least they were ballsy enough to go for it. In the end, this really ends up being a bit more of an artsy-fartsy film starring the Joker. But the rest of us fans remember Nicholson's art gallery scene from '89, and prefer that more chaotic version of the Joker being artistic. This didn't ruin the character for me or anything, but I can say with full conviction now that Phoenix is NOT my Joker.

1/5

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