Folie à deux is a forensic psychiatric term loosely translated as “madness in two people”. It has traditionally been used to describe the criminal actions of couples bound by love and co-dependency – think Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, and the infamous Chicago murderers of 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.
In Todd Phillips’ sequel to his haunting 2019 Joker, Joaquin Phoenix reprises his Best Actor performance as multi-murderer, Arthur Fleck, who has spent the past few years in Arkham Asylum as he awaits his day in court.
While his legal team argues that he is merely a hapless victim of dissociative identity disorder, Arthur falls in love with fellow hospital resident Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who admires him precisely because he is the Joker. Their mutual obsession fuels Arthur’s self-confidence and muddies the legal waters which threaten to drown him.
The extraordinary Phoenix and outstanding Gaga make a terrific on-screen pair. Both play outlandish characters whose reality away from the bloodsucking media is touchingly quiet and almost romantically insular. Phoenix’s heartbreakingly vulnerable anti-hero invites our sympathy, particularly when the two break into song. Don’t worry, this isn’t a musical in the usual sense, but a strange hybrid, in which the sad protagonist retreats into fantasy at regular intervals, singing ballads about, and with, his belle.
Needless to say, Gaga is a natural with the crooner-heavy soundtrack, but Phoenix’s raspy (and thankfully in tune) voice as he belts out Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered) imbues Arthur with a sweet melancholy.
Beautifully photographed by returning cinematographer Lawrence Sher and again scored with Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir’s brooding cello, Phillips’ return to Arthur’s grim past and pointless present can’t be faulted for its technical and performance aspects. Phoenix is captivating, even if we’ve seen this Joker before, and viewers may have the disconcerting experience of involuntarily toe-tapping along to swooping one-shots around the asylum’s gloomy common room.
But the film’s big problem is that it’s not really saying anything. Arthur’s crimes aren’t in dispute (after all, in Joker he shot Robert De Niro’s talkshow host on live TV) and this script isn’t about apologising for the fact that “hurt people hurt people”. Instead, a bevy of kindly female characters try to help the impassive killer before one cruelly betrays him. Whereas Joker felt shockingly exhilarating, this sequel simply leaves you empty and sad.
Rating out of five: ★★★
Joker: Folie à Deux, directed by Todd Phillips, is in cinemas now.
