“‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ review: Courtroom drama/musical sequel fails |”. Entertainment

Film review

As you watch Joker: Folie à Deux, you may be wondering whether the subtitle (which roughly translates to “a shared madness”) applies to the characters or the filmmakers. Todd Phillips’ sequel to his 2019 hit “Joker,” which won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar in the title role, is a big hit: it’s a courtroom drama/musical in which Phoenix’s imprisoned madman Arthur Fleck/Joker meets like-minded people meets the confused Harley Quinn (here called Lee and played by Lady Gaga) as he stands trial for murder, and they express their mutual love and nihilism by very slowly singing many mid-century classics to each other.

It’s a strange decision, to say the least. It’s not that musicals can’t explore darkness effectively (see “Sweeney Todd” if you have any doubts); To achieve that, you have to actually let people sing. Lady Gaga has a wonderfully lilting voice that is at home in any style of song, but here she spends much of the film singing the lyrics in a strained, raspy whisper. It makes sense for the character – Lee, in a psychiatric hospital, is clearly deeply disturbed – but it’s a waste; Why don’t you give us a few more fantasy sequences and make them really sing? Phoenix, a passable if soft-spoken singer, also fails to rise to the occasion (although, who would have thought?, he turns out to be able to tap dance). What they both ultimately prove is that songs like “That’s Entertainment,” “What the World Needs Now” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” can actually sound scary if you slow them down a lot; That may not be a good enough reason to make a film.

In this film, set several years after the events of Joker, Arthur is imprisoned, taunted by guards (“Do you have a joke for us today?”) and denied his usual Joker makeup , unable to be his true self. But he finds a piece of that self in Lee, who takes one look at him in a rehab singing class with psychiatric patients (no, it doesn’t make sense that he’s allowed to do that) and promptly declares her love for him. “Are you crazy?” he asks her admiringly. The film alternates between elaborate fantasy sequences in which Joker and Lee play a kind of crazy Fred and Ginger or Sonny and Cher, and the somewhat darker reality of the trial.

There’s a lot of talent on screen here, which makes “Folie à Deux” all the more insane; A scene in which Lee applies eyeliner while singing “I’ve Got the World on a String” is a fascinating reminder of Gaga’s uncanny charisma. But ultimately it’s a wild experiment that largely fails. “I don’t want to sing anymore,” Joker says near the end; not soon enough.