JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX

Producers: Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Joseph Garner   Director: Todd Phillips   Screenplay: Scott Silver and Todd Phillips Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Bill Smitrovich, Sharon Washington and Connor Storrie   Distributor: Warner Bros.

Grade: C-

While one might appreciate Todd Phillips’ desire to make the sequel to his 2019 blockbuster something different, adopting the technique Dennis Potter employed so brilliantly in his 1978 British mini-series “Pennies from Heaven” (and transferred into Hollywood terms just as stunningly by Herbert Ross in the 1981 film adaptation) turns out to have been an error.  Inserting musical numbers revealing characters’ inner lives into what’s basically a tale of the trial of the murderous loser played by Joaquin Phoenix and the misplaced idolization of him by an equally unhinged young woman results, in fact, in a movie that feels like one long mistake whose subtitle, indicating a madness shared by the two, might actually be a “folie” extended to all those who thought this was a good idea.  Its ending, while unlikely to be a hit with fans of the Batman comics, should, however, bring a definite close to what might otherwise have become an interminable series.

After a striking ersatz WB cartoon by Sylvain Chomet that quickly covers the events of the first film, ending in the popular enthusiasm that greeted the Joker’s acts of nihilistic violence (cf. “V for Vendetta”), “Folie à Deux” takes us into Arkham Asylum, where Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is awaiting the disposition of his case under the watchful eyes of guards led by the jovially nasty Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson).  Young DA Harvey Dent (stiff-as-a-board Harry Lawtey) insists on trying him on five counts of first-degree murder, while his lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) constructs a defense based on insanity by reason of split personality disorder.

Sullivan shows a milder side by allowing Fleck to participate in a rehabilitative choral group where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), an alleged arsonist who’s an ardent admirer of his Joker persona and encourages him to embrace it fully.  Her comradeship stirs some hope of human connection in him, expressed in (presumably hallucinatory) bouts of songs, as when he breaks into “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” when being interviewed by belligerent TV anchor Paddy Meyers (Steve Coogan).  They also have duets together until she causes a fire as the prisoners watch the “That’s Entertainment” number from “The Band Wagon,” they escape into the yard together, and she’s released while he’s returned to his cell.  On the outside she remains his staunchest believer, eventually adopting the persona of the Joker’s femme fatale girlfriend Harley Quinn.

Phillips now turns to the trial, at which under Lee’s steadfast encouragement Arthur fires Stewart and, donning his Joker makeup and garb, acts as his own lawyer.  Apart from one imaginary musical number in which he destroys the courtroom and bashes the judge (Bill Smitrovich) to death, it’s a long slog as Dent calls his witnesses—the doctor (Ken Leung) who declares that Fleck’s faking, the social worker (Sharon Washington) who reads from Fleck’s journal, the woman (Zazie Beetz) with whom he fantasized having a romance, the neighbor (Leigh Gill) traumatized by witnessing one of the killings.  Although Gill makes the most of his few minutes, the rest are a relatively colorless bunch, while Arthur’s two most notable fellow inmates at Arkham, young fellows played by Jacob Lofland and Connor Storrie, go to the other extreme, practically frothing at the mouth.

Phoenix, of course, gives a compelling performance.  Looking emaciated, with sunken cheeks and skin through which the bones seem ready to burst, he can’t, even when in Joker garb, carry off the musical numbers with the same degree of astonishing versatility that Steve Martin did in “Pennies from Heaven,” but in his hands Fleck remains a fascinating creature, though hardly a revelatory one.  Lady Gaga, unfortunately, is pretty much wasted.  Doubtlessly in deference to her less accomplished partner, she seems always to be holding back both her pipes and her dramatic charisma.  But the song interludes frankly lack much imagination anyway.  As commentary to the action, they lack the poisonous precision that Potter brought to his juxtapositions, and Phillips and editor Jeff Groth do little to give them visual distinction.  Nor does the gloominess of Mark Friedberg’s production design and Lawrence Sher’s cinematography afford much that’s impressive, though Arianne Philiips’ costumes add some welcome splashes of color.  Hildur Gudnadóttir’s score goes for broke, adding some propulsion to a dour, thinly scripted film that, at well over two hours, feels portentously distended.

Anticipation will undoubtedly bring large audiences out initially for “Folie à Deux.”  The crowds probably won’t last long.  The movie is less an instance of a cinematic killing machine than one of franchise suicide.