Joker Folie a Deux movie review

Joker Folie a Deux is an 8/10, the movie was up to par with the first but is extremely overhated.

By: Mathew Manseau

To understand Joker Folie a Deux, context for the first movie is needed: A man named Arthur Fleck works as a clown in Gotham City, with the dream of being a great comedian and showing up on his hero’s TV show. However, every time he tries to present his jokes, he’s laughed at or made himself out to be an unfunny person. He was an orphan and abused as a kid, which caused severe trauma, part of the domino effect of his descent to insanity. At the end of the film, he gets taken to jail. Joker Folie a Deux takes place a few months later.

In this film, Arthur has to go on trial to prove himself guilty or innocent. As this happens there is conflict within the prison. The guards are abusing their power, so the inmates are treated very poorly. Arthur meets a singer in a rehab program that uses music where he discovers his love for music and her. As Arthur tries to improve his mental state, Harleen Quinzell who is his now lover, constantly tries to convince him that he is perfect as he is. Deeper and deeper throughout the movie he starts regressing further. He has his psychiatrist as his attorney to represent the improvement in behavior. Eventually, they are on the brink of winning and Arthur decides to fire her and represent himself in court. This negatively affects the outcome as he kept on trying to turn the whole courtroom into a comedy show, and couldn’t contain himself. 

Everything in the movie is covered as realistically as it can while keeping the enjoyment factor, putting into perspective how cruel some prison systems really are. The movie remains with a depressing tone and keeps the spotlight on Arthur to make the situation seem pitiful. The main criticisms I have noticed for the movie were“it’s a musical” or “it’s a courtroom drama” and even “the movie is nothing like the first”, even down to people complaining about the movie seeming low budget. The cinematography was as great as the first, the same with the mood and tone. If anything the actors seemed more committed to their roles. 

On the complaint that it was a musical, it was announced to be one in August of 2022, two years before it had even been released. More specifically Todd Philips said “The film is the very definition of a musical” but he had been hesitant to call it one, following up with Lady Gaga saying that the movie is very different from most musicals and is used as a way for characters to express themselves. Which is true. Yes, there are 41 minutes of music which is roughly a third of the entire movie, but they address that later in the film. It is stated by one of the witnesses that Arthur often used journals and diaries to deal with his struggles and would often use it to show his dream of being a comedian. He was shown to dance in a few scenes from the first movie, which hints at music being important to him, but he hadn’t recognized it. All of the musical scenes are used to show his thought process and his internal conflict alongside his dreams and goals. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the music but it’s subjective like the overall enjoyment of the movie.

Moving on to people complaining about the movie being a “courtroom drama.” From what I saw, the courtroom scenes were roughly 20 minutes. In these scenes, some parts dragged on a little and were irritating to watch, but people are treating it as if that’s the ENTIRE setting of the movie. It isn’t the best part, but it’s carrying the realistic tone from the first movie to this one. The first movie concluded with  Arthur getting sent to prison, usually, people are sent to prison and then they have a trial, which is exactly what happens in this movie. The courtroom scenes are also more entertaining than mosts in other movies.

Overall the movie was great, critics just haven’t looked much past the surface details and already held a bias before they watched it. I’m one of those people, I saw the movie had disgustingly low reviews and was shocked at how the movie turned out. It wasn’t a bad movie, but also wasn’t perfect.