Co-writer and director Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover, Joker) helms this sequel about Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a tormented comedian who murdered several people in the first installment and now resides in Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial. In the hospital, he meets and falls in love with Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), beginning a deeply dysfunctional relationship. (140 min.)
Glen: An opening cartoon finds Joker impersonated by his own shadow, who takes over his show, leaves him half undressed on stage, and abandons him as three policemen arrive and beat him. It sets up the film’s central conceit. Is Joker a split personality? Is Arthur a good person and Joker a psychic invention his mind created to protect him? I can see why audiences and critics are finding the film challenging and less than entertaining. It’s slow and deeply depressing. Just the jagged escarpment of Joaquin Phoenix’s emaciated spine and shoulder blades is hard to watch. Arthur’s lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), knows the only way to possibly free Arthur is to convince a jury he’s not guilty by reason of insanity. But is he? Or did he simply snap.
Anna: I’m not sure what the expectation from most for this film was, but I’m guessing that perhaps it isn’t scoring highly with audiences because it’s so bleak and because it’s so song heavy. It’s basically a musical. While we saw the grime of Arthur’s life in the first film, there’s an overwhelming sadness in this reprisal of the role—Arthur is not just broken but beaten, and when a small ray of sunshine presents itself in Lee, he can’t help but gaze toward the light. Unfortunately, Lee’s ideal is swept up in the fantasy of the Joker and has little to do with Arthur himself. The two are ill-fated lovers, and there’s no fun romp through bad behavior here: It’s all just painful. I think there’s more here than a lot of people are giving it credit for—this film has a lot to say.
Glen: It definitely has a message, and that message that is our culture is broken. We have a fetishistic fascination with serial killers, and our justice, incarceration, and mental health systems are irrevocably broken. Shout out to Brendan Gleeson as Arkham guard Jackie Sullivan. He’s a reminder that supposedly upstanding people can be just as psycho as Joker. There are zero likeable characters here. Steve Coogan plays talk show host Paddy Meyers, a despicable prick exploiting Arthur’s illness. I had to look this up, but folie à deux is a French phrase describing two people who share a mental illness, and that absolutely defines Arthur and Lee. They’re both living in a fantasy, which reveals itself in the song-and-dance numbers that spring up throughout the story. Arthur is a sympathetic character because we know how awful his life has been and how badly he’s been treated. Lee has it all—wealth and education—but she’s still a twisted maniac. Unlike Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), this film plays the story straight, and this dark reading of the DC Universe may have turned people off.
Anna: I remember when Suicide Squad came out. It seemed like there was a rash spreading through town of young women and girls playing dress-up as Harley Quinn, and I remember thinking that the wrong kind of character was getting romanticized. Gaga’s Lee isn’t trying to strike that same cute-little-prankster vibe, instead unfolding a dark character with a singular obsession. When Arthur reveals a human side of himself, Lee is completely thrown off and turned off. While Arthur may be a monster in his own right, what the world has done to him is even uglier. It chewed him up and spit him out.
New Times Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey and freelancer Anna Starkey write Sun Screen. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 10-20, 2024.