You know who he is: Red suit; Green hair; Sudden bursts of maniacal cackle escaping his upturned lipstick-painted smile. And despite knowing better, you found yourself progressively rooting for him: a man trying to pursue his dream in a shitty, ruthless metropolis where assholes were putting him down left and right; Struggling with mental health and feeling completely unseen as the only thing about him people ever "saw" were his shortcomings; Tolerating abuse day in and day out, until he realized he was unable to control anything, from his facial expressions and voice to his life's miserable circumstances.
Indeed, Arthur Fleck felt completely alone: a performer who longed for an audience to appreciate him, a son who longed for a loving family to belong in, a man who longed for a partner to be with. But... nobody cared unless it was so that they could laugh at him and put him in his place.
You see, he was the joke.
What do you know though, you harass someone barely keeping it together one time too many,
So, in the first movie -which, in Joker: Folie à Deux we learn was exactly that, a movie based on Fleck's 4 body homicidal rampage-, the joke becomes self conscious, it escapes the suppressed Arthur and unleashes violence where it sees fit, sweeping the masses along by its genuine, Judgement Day level discontent at a status quo that benefits only the powerful. In other words, the joke becomes the Joker.
Joker fans loved it, moviegoers loved it, I loved it, and, I mean, how could we not? House-owning was a joke, salaries were a joke, affording this and that from groceries to kids was starting to become a joke and what was once the middle class (not to mention what went on further down) was under more pressure than Arthur Fleck on the daily. It only seemed fitting that with so many "jokes" (of the unhinged, cackling variety to be certain), a character like that Joker would inevitably become popular.
And then Todd Phillips, director of the first Joker (2019) movie went on to make a second movie, Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), starring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role again. At a bleaker time, when inflation is turning spending income into peanuts and celebrities are no longer glorified for their extravagant lifestyles but maintain their relevancy on account of being relatable, we got a movie in which the Joker is literally put on trial and which basically revolves around the question of what would happen if Arthur, whom we last left (d)evolved into the Joker, would (d)evolve back again into just Arthur.
Unlike just Ken though, who also got to sing his heart out, just Arthur is and always has been a pitiful, untalented, low intellect, scraggy performer.
Worse yet, he was supposed to be the average Joe turning full villain, incidentally serving some well-deserved justice to a bunch of obnoxious selfish assholes whose delusions of grandeur make them treat everyone else as worthless trash without ever considering the possibility of retribution. But, in an arc which shows considerable character growth (that apparently nobody appreciates), Arthur realizes that, rather than some alter-ego supervillain megastar, he has always been just Arthur, and takes accountability for his crimes. That is to say that despite Arkham's non-existent mental health services and disturbingly out of control guards, despite an ever-rising notoriety with Gotham's most disenfranchised populace and even mainstream media, despite Lee Quinn's unexpected infatuation, that all work against him, Arthur manages to own his shit and realize that he doesn't want to be the Joker.
Cue everyone, and I mean everyone inside and outside of the movie suddenly realizing that poor Arthur Fleck is a pitiful, untalented, low intellect, scraggy performer that they don't care about. In my opinion, this is the second testament to this project's creative brilliance, meaning how it goes to showcase the irony of us, as a society, professing that we don't or anyway shouldn't care about -and for that matter are almost suspicious of- looks or status, while forever picking the rich and handsome Bruce Waynes over the unfortunate and suppressed Arthur Flecks.
Arthur is not accepted as an interesting or endearing enough figure on his own as just Arthur; best he can do for our entertainment is to fucking lose it already and start killing everyone, as the Joker.
In fact, it is my working hypothesis that for a significant chunk of those who didn't enjoy the movie, adding (significantly) more violence, as well as a hint / touch / cameo of Batman, would make for a better movie score.
And now let me address the singing elephant in the room. Remember that fucking iconic dancing scene in the first movie, where the Joker was dancing in the stairs?
Remember how he was, well, ...dancing? As in, he, a bad performer longing to be good, finally found it within him to express himself symbolically through dance, as soon as his inner chaos was unleashed?
I think that amidst the woeful mentions of a "musical" and the subsequent laments over the fact, it somehow became easy to miss that
it actually makes sense for the wannabe performer whose increased unhingement was symbolically expressed through a dance performance, to move on to a different, more discussion-simulating form of performative expression such as singing, as soon as he started falling in love.
In Joker: Folie à Deux, we get little glimpses of Arthur's peculiar psyche here and there, for example when there's color in the Arkham guards' umbrellas.
What I find most brilliant however, is that his psychosis is portrayed by means of singing. This rule also applies to Lee Quinzel, who is so obsessed with the idea of Joker that, in the sick dynamic between her and Arthur, she is the one who doesn't actually want the other one to become healthier. It is therefore no surprise that towards the ending, when Arthur has come to the realization that being himself means not being the Joker and Lee has accepted that he can't be what she wants him to be but she still refuses to let go of the Joker fantasy, she mockingly sings to him and he emphatically tells her to stop singing, even going so far as to block her mouth with his hand:
Arthur wants out of the psychotic Joker fantasy they both shared at one point; He no longer partakes in this folie à deux; he has stopped singing.
This singing business in itself is, of course, a very ambitious take from a writer's and director's perspective. But I think it was on the right track and in any case stayed true to the source material, since the Joker as a character was a performer -or villain of a performative nature if you will-, who became popular more than half a century ago. The Joker is not a smartphone villain. He wouldn't know how to tell his jokes to an online audience or upload them on TikTok. This latest reinterpretation of the singing -especially this genre they chose for the movie- performing clown makes sense.
Ok, so the movie is artistically ambitious, doesn't lack creative vision and pays respect to the source material despite clearly taking a different angle on the title character. But is it any good?
I'd say yes, it is a good movie. It features (yet again) phenomenal acting from Phoenix, who even gets to challenge himself more by singing live. Gaga delivers an intense (this Harley Quinn is much scarier than this Joker!) performance. And that singing scene where she plays two pianos simultaneously? Fun as hell!
Yet, the movie suffers from two insurmountable problems:
One, it was impossible to market to the right audience, which made grievances and disappointments inevitable. Joker: Folie à Deux is a film that cinephiles who enjoy going to film festivals will enjoy, but it's not a movie likely to become popular with audiences who are used to blockbuster styles of storytelling and pace.
Two, some of the singing scenes could have had a little more going on in terms of action. Once the whole psychosis/fantasy, performing/expressing oneself, Joker/Arthur etc. point is made clearly, it becomes a little tiring to seemingly pause the action for a singing scene all the time.
All in all, the movie kept me interested in wanting to see what happens next. The way the trial ends will particularly keep you invested in how things turn out. And for the disappointed hardcore fans out there:
Well, he got what he fucking deserved.
Comentários