Anatomy of a Scene: It’s all downhill for ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ after a stunningly surreal opening sequence
Few sequels have fallen off a cliff as hard or as fast as Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, which decided that the best way to follow up a billion-dollar box office juggernaut that became a surprise awards season heavyweight was to dedicate its entire 138-minute running time to pontificous navel-gazing.
The fact that the idea for the next chapter in Arthur Fleck’s story came from a dream experienced by star Joaquin Phoenix says a lot because it’s clear the movie wasn’t made with an audience in mind. It’s been called many things by many different people, but the easiest way to describe Joker 2 is that it’s essentially an arthouse film made on a scale comparable to the standard comic book adaptation.
It’s often a beautiful thing to look at on a technical and artistic level, but at no point does it carry a clear intention. Was Phillips so dissuaded by the demographic that took Joker so closely to their hearts that he intentionally went out of his way to craft something they’d actively detest? Was it an ambitious sequel made with complete creative autonomy falling victim to self-indulgence? Or was it simply the latest in a long line of subpar second instalments, a blight that’s affected countless franchises over the years?
The result is probably somewhere in the middle, with Folie à Deux peaking in its introductory sequence. The opening of the film comes completely out of the blue, takes the audience by surprise, and contains the sort of off-kilter weirdness that promised a completely different kind of Joker flick to its predecessor, only for that intentionally anarchic streak to dry up and evaporate in favour of sketchy song-and-dance numbers and leaden courtroom scenes.
Warner Bros is a studio that’s notoriously protective of its most famous pieces of intellectual property, which is why Batman and his arch-nemesis are in a perpetual state of rebooting that’s never seen them serve as the headline attractions of anything other than a feature film. However, Joker 2 threw a curveball into the mix by crossing over with the company’s storied animation department, which is every bit as weird as it sounds.
In the aftermath of Joker becoming the highest-grossing R-rated release in cinema history and winning two Oscars from 11 nominations, suggesting that the sequel would open with a Looney Tunes-inspired animated interlude inspired by filmmaker Sylvain Chomet’s 2003 animated movie The Triplets of Belleville with shades of Tex Avery would have sounded ludicrous, but that’s exactly what happened.
In fact, Phillips personally sought out Chomet himself to oversee the sequence. “He told me he was a big fan of The Triplets of Belleville, especially the opening scene,” Chomet said, per BFMTV. “That’s exactly what he wanted for his film: an opening with a retro cartoon, but not in the style of Betty Boop like in The Triplets introduction. So I suggested making a Tex Avery-style cartoon, like from the 1940s. He loved the idea.”
Kicking things off with a Looney Tunes ode recapping and recounting the reasons why Arthur is currently incarcerated, not to mention relaying one of Folie à Deux‘s recurring themes that the inmate and the Joker are two distinct personalities who can’t be held accountable for each other’s actions, was a swing for the fences as bold as it was inspired.
Those first few minutes promised something more esoteric, experimental, and ultimately audacious than the first Joker, but it was a billing Phillips had no interest in living up to across the following two hours and change. If anything, it’s indicative of the movie as a whole, just not for the reasons anyone was expecting going in.
