Maybe in hindsight it's hardly surprising that the new Joker movie didn't exactly wow me. Firstly, I wasn't a huge fan of the first one: it seemed to be as deliberately offputting as possible, a film that set out solely to make the viewer (and specifically me) uncomfortable and uneasy. Secondly, I have largely given up on Marvel and DC comicbook movies anyway on the grounds that I'm just fed up with them (The Flash still remains the only film I can think that's killed an entire subgenre stone dead for me). And I was largely right in my preconceptions: while I remain ambivalent about Joker I'm absolutely not so both-sides about Joker: Folie A Deux, a film that annoyed me far more than it entertained me, and a film which didn't do anything I might have liked but did a whole lot of things I definitely didn't. The main one of those is that it's a musical, one my my very least favourite genres: there are maybe five musicals that I can actually take and this absolutely is not one of them.
We are back in the miserable world of hopeless standup Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), in the midst of being assessed for competency to stand trial for the five (or six) murders Fleck/Joker committed in the first film. Is he sane enough to face the death penalty or is he unfit to plead, sending him to proper psychiatric care? In a music therapy group he meets and connects with Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who's obviously some version of Harley Quinn - but is she connecting with him or Joker? Is it actual love, or just the obsession of a superfan? Even as the trial proceeds (with Harvey Dent as prosecutor, lest we forget this is a Batman spinoff), the chanting mob gathers outside...
Much of Joker: Folie A Deux is a prison drama and courtroom drama, but interspersed with stylised song and dance numbers taking place within Fleck's mind. Personally I found this distracting and with a running time of 138 minutes I could have cheerfully lost them, especially since there seem to be so many of them. (There were three points at which I almost said out loud "Oh, no, they're going to sing again, aren't they?" And they did!) And for a reported budget of $190 million plus: where's there big screen spectacle? A dialogue heavy film taking place in two main interior locations, and with no huge setpieces or endless CGI overkill, really should cost half that much at most. Worse: for any of us who might have actually been invested in Fleck's story and character, and who had given them 260 minutes over two films, the ending will feel like a swindle. Still, at least it rules out Joker 3...
Is it at least better than Joker? I'm not sure that it even clears that fairly modest bar. The first one was obviously trying to do something different with the whole DC/Batman mythos, but neither the Joker nor the perpetually downtrodden Fleck were particularly enjoyable company and to be honest it's the same here. It's hopelessly grim throughout (Hildur Gudnadottir gives us yet another glum cello-led score that's not going on any of my playlists), devoid of joy and lightness - why so serious? Frankly it's small wonder Fleck keeps escaping into showtune fantasias. That's obviously the point, but if you want to smuggle in an Author's Message about mental illness and insanity pleas then maybe this isn't the right vehicle for it.
As for the sadness: this was the last film at the Bedford Cineworld which closed Sunday night after thirty-three years. Since New Year's Eve 1990 I've seen precisely 1,037 films in that sixplex and it's a shame it's closing. Obviously I had to be there for the last house, whatever they were showing. But it's also a shame that they bowed out on such a whatever of a film: underwhelming, far too long, occasionally unbelievable, riddled with annoying songs and with a sour ending even for the sourest of characters. Though I liked the visual palette of the film, and I'm not about to deny the performances, it never wowed me, it never came to life and, even though one of the characters actually sets light to the building, it never catches fire. Maybe the joke's on me, maybe it's on all of us. But no-one's laughing.
**
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