I returned to Joker 2 over the weekend and while I’m not 100% sure how I will feel about it next month, I had the feeling by the end of the film that this may be one of those movies that it “rediscovered” in a few years and actually become a critics’ favorite.
I know… sounds nuts.
But having seen and digested the film once before, a lot of it played very differently for me the second time… including a surprising degree of reflection on Donald Trump in the tale.
Before getting into the movie again, a little about the response, particularly within the bubble.
To my eye, the #1 problem in the reception of the movie is that Warners didn’t make a mistake in greenlighting the film or giving Todd Phillips too much rope, but how it sold the film and managed the negative reaction in Venice.
If you look at CinemaScore - yes, there are some real uses for it… though it has now made it into TV ads and that is absurd - the times you see films with Ds or Fs coming from the people who most want to see the film (that is what PostTrak and CinemaScore surveys), it’s because they were surprised by the film… meaning that they were sold one kind of film and got another.
Start with the one-sheet for Joker: Folie à Deux… it never happens in the movie. There is a sequence with her in that dress and him in the make-up and there are set shots of them on those stairs, made famous in the original. But when they are, ultimately, on those stairs together, he is not in the make-up or the suit.
This is not a movie about Joker and Harley Quinn going on a rampage.
The situation is a bit like Eyes Wide Shut, which was misunderstood to be a sex movie starring the hottest acting couple on the planet but is really about Tom Cruise’s Dr. Bill and his internal monologue about whether to cheat on his wife. Joker: Folie à Deux is an internal monologue between Arthur and Joker that is defined by the circumstances and people around them, including Lee Quinzel.
Audiences - even super-smart ones - are confused by both the seeming haphazard nature of the musical fantasy sequences and by being stuck for 85% of the movie in Arkham or the courtroom. When I see or hear the argument that “it’s a boring courtroom drama,” I am a bit shocked… because if that is how you are focusing on the movie, you aren’t even beginning to see what Phillips made.
Phillips and co-screenwriter Silver have delivered a very distinct 3-act structure. But it’s not Jail-Court-Last Act. It’s Spiritual Death - Resurrection - Choice for Arthur/Joker.
The folie à deux of the title is not Joker and Harley or Arthur and Lee… it is absolutely Arthur and Joker. It is internal. And Lee is the new flavor that sparks Joker back to life and with it, Arthur… though they really aren’t a safe combination for Arthur.
So I do blame Todd Phillips for the response in that he didn’t make the idea of what the movie really is clearer… but it’s there in the movie. The problem is, when he hands the movie to the studio, they don’t want to sell a Joker movie about the internal struggle of a broken man. They want to sell the danger and humor and cult-building excitement of Joker, which did over a billion dollars worldwide. They don’t want to minimize the significance of Lady Gaga’s Lee or even though they kinda hid it - making some see this as another musical that won’t admit it’s a musical… it’s not… but I hear and understand that - they don’t want to minimize the musical side that made the idea of this film so exciting for press and the social-media public alike. But it’s not a musical. It is a heavy drama with musical sequences that are, in 90% of the cases, Arthur’s fantasies.
It’s a variation on Dennis Potter, who even the people who care so much about granularity that they are reading this are barely familiar… which is not to accuse you of failing for not having seen the work of this genius who died in 1994, but while he was lauded and worked in the U.K., his work had a minimal footprint in the U.S. Even the very heavy Pennies From Heaven movie with Steve Martin is less weighty than the little-seen TV mini-series for the U.K. with Bob Hoskins, Likewise, The Singing Detective, which was a Michael Gambon-led mini-series in the UK in 1986 and remade as a film in America in 2003. A lot of critics are into these films, but there is minimal commercial footprint now or then.
You can argue, reasonably, about whether WB should have moved forward on such a dark idea for a sequel at this massive budget. But it is easy to imagine how seductive the pitch was too… for all the reasons that the announcement and a few set photos raised expectations for a year before the film was released. So if you want to have that argument - or to be quoted with your absolutist opinions from a distance in the trades - try to keep your feet on the ground, wouldya?
Now… about watching the movie again…
If you want to know just how clear Todd Phillips wanted to be about what this movie is, start with the opening cartoon, “Me and My Shadow.”
Sidenote - I have no idea if there was a serious conversation about making the cartoon in a true WB Termite Terrace style… but I hate that it wasn’t. Sylvain Chomet is a master and a great choice if he is what you were after. But the short should have really been a close imitation of the WB style and of course, the real Pepé Le Pew shows up throughout the movie. Imagine if the opening included a couple of classic WB animated characters… might have been great… but no. Let’s put this aside.
On first viewing, the animated short felt like an oddball add-on. On second view, it was clear that Phillips was telling the audience - as clearly as he ever does in the work - exactly what the film is about. It’s about Arthur fighting Joker for control. And everything else in the film informs that journey. None of those non -Arthur/Joker elements in the film are The Story.
This piece will now become more SPOILER-y than my initial review. So if you don’t want SPOILERS, now may be the time to bail out….
LAST WARNING…
I wrote about this in the first review, but Lee Quinzel is not the co-star of this story. She is a character who inspires and wakes Arthur Fleck. But she is never in love with Arthur Fleck. She loves Joker and only Joker.
Perhaps more importantly, Lee is a portrait of someone who wants to look outside of themselves to solve the deep, dark troubles of their lives. Joker completes her… in her twisted mind.
Arthur knows that Joker is abhorrent. And in this film, we see how his defense mechanisms - inappropriate laughing, lies, mockery of others, and ultimately, violence - are triggered. When he tries to reach out, as Arthur, to people who care for him as Joker, he is every bit as rejected as he was before Joker came out. Joker gives him power and passion and love.
Arthur’s way of imagining power/passion/love outside of Joker is movie musicals and music in general. Before Lee comes into his life, he is already fantasizing the multi-colored umbrellas of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg when the umbrellas in real life are plain, black umbrellas. When Lee wants his attention during a screening of The Band Wagon (as seen in the opening cartoon), he wants to watch the movie more than to run off with her because he wants to be in that world. Even when Lee joins him in song, he knows, somewhere inside, that she is all about Joker. So as the musical sequences roll out, Joker becomes more involved and more powerful.
But Arthur is not looking for Harley Quinn. He wants to be loved, in full Arthur, by Lee.
But Lee is not able to do this… or interested. Arthur, as she will literally express, is nothing to her. Joker was her road to freedom in her damaged mind.
As the movie starts, Arthur has given Joker up. He’s not even telling jokes anymore. But Lee sparks him. And then, Lee guides him. He wants to watch the movie… she sets a fire so they can “escape” together. She lies about who she is to seduce him…. she doesn’t see how hungry Arthur is for love, especially from the opposite sex, because she doesn’t have a problem getting attention from the opposite sex. When she gets access to him in solitary, there is the inference that she did “whatever (she) had to do” to get access… which I read as likely being a sex act. She is emotionally disconnected. Arthur is an unattached live wire. Joker doesn’t need anyone… but Arthur desperately needs someone. Every time Arthur re-asserts his desire to push away from Joker and back to Arthur, Lee manipulates him back into re-embracing Joker. And the more intensely he embraces Joker, the more firm his hold on Lee.
I am going to lose some of you now… sorry…
But at some point, it struck me that Phillips and Silver were writing a lot of Joker: Folie à Deux about Donald Trump. I can’t know how intentional it was/is. But thematically, it is the story of an abused man who finds power in unleashing his long-sublimated rage. See The Apprentice movie or any doc about Trump and you will see how he was never good enough for his parents and how so much of his adult life has been and remains, at almost 80 years of age, has been about seeking approval. This is a man so needy that becoming President of the United States of America in a shocking turn by any standard, was not enough to give him peace. He spends all of his public time trying to inspire worship and support for himself and no matter how he succeeds, it is never enough.
As a result, a cult builds around Trump, as it does Joker, blurring the lines between good and bad. Some of Joker’s killings could be fairly rationalized… others not really at all. Trump is not all reactive anger. There is often a method to his madness. Joker’s followers are enraged at The Machine… just as Trump’s are. And there are completely rational reasons to be enraged at The Machine. We saw liberals who followed Bernie Sanders express that rage just as Trump’s followers on the right did.
Joker is empowered by large groups of other people at the end of Joker. And he is in his glory. It seems that Arthur is gone.
That’s the first movie.
But this second movie is what happens when the fever breaks and you don’t necessarily want to be the thing you and the world created. The return of Arthur. But if you try to go back, you will be disappointing a lot of people who love you right now. You know you overstepped. You want to step back. But there is now an enormous price for that choice. So you move forward. You double down. And you keep doubling down… even when it makes no sense at all.
Of course, Arthur is braver than Mr. Trump. He takes responsibility before his judgement comes. I don’t know that Trump will ever admit he lost the 2020 election or the 2024 election, for that matter. But assuming he loses in November - if not, the joke is on us… whose different sequel - maybe he will soften a bit and get some perspective on the rage he has brought to so many Americans, manipulating real issues for them with constant lying to keep them in line with his selfish goals.
But back to the movie…
Eventually, Joker ends up mocking and being cruel to the one person in his past who he wanted to save. And he brings out cruelty in people who were not necessarily nice to him… but who thought he were okay and treated him okay so long as he stayed within their lines. And then, those people kill (by mistake) a kind, simple-minded co-inmate who idolized Joker… because their rage at your joker gets away from them.
And Joker is done.
The world has, objectively, not been kind to Arthur. But he knows he went to far in his unleashed Joker and he is going to take responsibility, satisfied that there is one person left who he knows in his heart loves him will love him, whatever he chooses. Then miraculously, he gets the chance to be free, for the first time in the film. He runs to her. And she doesn’t want him… Arthur. All she wants is his rage… Joker… to try to heal herself.
So Joker’s story is over. Arthur takes responsibility. He commits to being Arthur. And what is the price?
It gets worse for Arthur.
This is the price that Joker exacted from Robert DeNiro’s Murray Franklin in Joker. (literal trigger warning for the video)
He says - "What do you get, when you cross a mentally ill loner, with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I'll tell you what you get. You get what you fucking deserve!" - from Joker
When Connor Storrie’s “Young Inmate” comes for Arthur in Joker: Folie à Deux, telling a “joke” about a hero who doesn’t deliver as expected, his last words are, “You get exactly what you deserve.”
And then he stabs Arthur to death.
Joker gave Arthur power. But like Murray Franklin, Joker also became a public symbol, above and separate from “the fans.” And their passions are always beyond the control of the focus of those passions, as when we get lost in our passions, they are often beyond our immediate control.
That’s Joker: Folie à Deux.
You may not like this answer. You may hate it. But it is unreasonable to claim that it is nonsensical or just a boring courtroom drama or somehow a giant “fuck you” by Todd Phillips to fans or Warner Bros. (I can’t speak for Bill Smitrovich’s Scorsese-style glasses as The Judge.)
Liking something and it making sense are 2 separate measures.
And more importantly, your expectations should NEVER be a filmmaker’s primary guide. People do get hired to do hack sequels to hit movies of a kind. But that is not this. I will not fight anyone’s taste around this film or any other. But I will fight against the lack of effort some have made to think of this film - or others - beyond their instant surface reaction. Even for Todd, who has been personally unkind to me in the past.
They say the best directors steal from the best directors. No doubt, this is true. When they are good or great, they also innovate on what they steal. Joker: Folie à Deux steals from a lot of movies that are loved by the same critics who are panning it with such passion. For instance, on second view, the connection to All That Jazz became much more glaring, in both a musical sequence and with Connor Storrie as a kind of inverted version of Jessica Lange’s Angel of Death.
I am neither vain or stupid enough to try to flip someone like Glenn Kenny on this movie. And really, I don’t want to. I don’t even know that I believe the film is worthy of the effort. It’s not Fight Club or Eyes Wide Shut… at least not for me. But I do find it infuriating to see both lazy criticism and a foolish blurring of the line between the show and the business sides.
I may well have been aboard WB’s strategic take going into Venice. But then, with the very soft, in not angry, reaction there, I would have wanted to change directions. It is my opinion that when you have a “problem movie,” that hiding it is the clearest road to death. And when you have a “problem movie” that is a problem in great part because the audiences don’t understand what it is you are selling, your best route is to show the hell out of the movie. Find you heroes. And explain what it is you want your potential ticket-buyer to get excited about.
The alternative is what WB tried… they hid the salami. “Don’t pay attention to the negative buzz out of Venice… keep watching the commericals.” But a big part of the buzz was that the commercials were misleading. And they are.
The choice between opening your movie up to a full discussion before release and trying to hold it until you get your opening weekend and just deal with it from there.
And there is this… WB may not understand the movie any better than many film critics and much of the public did. I have had the experience many times over these last 30 years where it was clear that the studio didn’t know what they had… movies that would become hits, but could have been bigger hits if the studio was really on board.
Don’t misunderstand… I get it wrong too. Every year. Multiple times. Sometimes all the marketing machinery leads to the right answers for how to release a movie and how the public will respond. Sometimes, marketers need to push away from those “objective” structures. Sometimes they know. Sometimes they don’t. No one hits it perfectly every time. Choices must be made and they are often passionately wrong. The old thing that a great baseball hitter is chasing 4 hits for every 10 at-bats. Marketers are expected to do better than that.
Remember… Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had a record-breaking opening just 5 weeks ago… and it’s still holding very well. Did WB marketing get hit with a stupid stick? No!!! Obviously. And their collective genius was probably a bit overstated in the success.
Making movies is making movies… and marketing movies is marketing movies. They do meet. But they also conflict. No one can say for sure that the way Joker: Folie à Deux was released was not the best case scenerio. We can’t go back in time and have a do-over. But even in the mind of the do-over, there are multiple possible approaches. As mentioned, they could have flooded the zone and had Todd Phillips tell everyone what his intentions were or they could have hidden it like it was the greatest secret ever and just open it, shocking the world. Either might have been better… or worse. And there are dozens of variations with that range.
You don’t need Phoenix and Gaga to do a lot of press in Venice… after all, on what planet were they where Phoenix and Gaga did a lot of press?!?!?
Marketing departments are pros and use the tools they have. The movie is one of those tools. But it is not the defining factor of opening weekend. But you have to be careful because it does become a huge factor in the weekend’s after. Very tricky.
I believe that Joker: Folie à Deux is a much better movie than the one portrayed by the media, including some very serious critics. Do I think it is great? I am not there yet… but might get there. But I know its not frivilous or insulting to the audience in general or some kind of nasty trick on WB execs.
I also know that it doesn’t have a comic book movie kind of ending. It doesn’t set up another sequel. It’s not the same kind of anti-hero smirk that the first Joker closed with.
The last image and sound in All That Jazz is the body bag being zipped up on Joe Gideon. The last image of Joker: Folie à Deux reminded me of that. And of course…
Until tomorrow…
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Fantastic writing... loved your analysis end to end, from the movie to the marketing. Thank you David.