‘Joker: Folie à Deux’: intentionally subversive, or a deliberate troll job?
In 2019, Todd Phillips made Joker on a reported budget of $55-70 million, and it returned a mind-boggling $1.079 billion to the worldwide box office. Its tale of a mentally ill stand-up comedian who murders a talk show host on live TV and becomes a twisted symbol of social revolt in the process had very little relation to the DC comic book character – but busting so many blocks made a sequel inevitable. It took five years for it to finally arrive, though, and the reception to Joker: Folie à Deux has been interesting, to say the least – and by interesting, I mean caustic. So, what gives?
To answer that question, it’s worth going back to the reaction to the first film, which was controversial in its own way. You see, it became a political hot button topic in certain quarters of the internet due to the perception that Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Arthur Fleck was somehow glorifying incel culture. There were even fears that it could incite mass shootings at public screenings – a fear which people couldn’t totally ignore thanks to the tragic Aurora, Colorado shooting at a 2012 showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
On the other hand, though, Joker was also rapturously received by many critics and wound up nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It was, by any metric, a roaring success, and this likely emboldened Warner Bros to say to Phillips and Phoenix, “Do whatever you want with the sequel, and we’ll foot the bill.”
What Phillips and his star chose to do with the reported $200m budget—a number Phillips disagreed with, incidentally, calling it “absurd”—seems to have taken many fans of the original film by surprise, though. Spurred on by a dream Phoenix had of Fleck singing on stage, the two concocted a sequel that would be one part prison drama and one part courtroom thriller—all filtered through the lens of a movie musical.
To their credit, Phillips and Phoenix have been upfront about their musical misadventure for the entire production of Joker: Folie à Deux. When iconic pop star Lady Gaga was cast as Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel – their version of the incredibly popular Harley Quinn character – they told the press that the movie would have singing in it. Warner Brothers, however, seemed more reticent to fully reveal to the world that the movie was a full-blown musical in its trailers and advertising campaign. However, as Fox Mulder would have said, the truth was out there if you’d want to find it.
To Phillips, there was no point in doing a sequel to Joker – itself a risky proposition – if he wasn’t willing to take a similar risk again. He told Variety, “Why do something if it doesn’t scare the shit out of you? I’m addicted to risk.” He wasn’t blind to how wrong it could all potentially go, though, telling the outlet, “There were days on set where you’d look around and think, ‘Holy fucking shit! What did we do?'”
In the end, though, Joker: Folie à Deux may have been one risk too far for the Hangover director. Its worldwide opening weekend box office take was only slightly more than half that of Joker‘s debut, and the critical reception has been vitriolic. Worse still, audiences have largely rejected the film as well, with many even seeming downright angered by its daring – or maybe misguided – vision.
Why is this the case, though? Is it because the film is so subversive and refuses to give the audience what they think they want? That certainly can’t be discounted – if you come to the film expecting Fleck to further embrace his identity as the Clown Prince of Crime and instead find him singing to Lady Gaga and being abused by prison guards, you’ll likely feel pretty let down. Hell, the entire thesis of the movie is Fleck rejecting his “Joker” persona entirely, along with everyone who held him up as a revolutionary for the downtrodden in Gotham society. The movie is explicitly telling its audience, “This guy isn’t anyone to put on a pedestal – he’s just a mentally ill man who was abused for his whole life and felt abandoned by society, so he lashed out at the world.”
This deliberate subversion of expectations led some fans to speculate that Phillips’ primary aim was to provoke those who they believed misunderstood the first film. The sequel has been described as a provocative move, intentionally designed to incite outrage. Some viewers noted that Joker: Folie à Deux appears to dismantle the fantasy established by the original, stirring strong reactions that seem to align with the director and cast’s intentions.
In truth, though, we’re not sure we believe that Phillips intentionally made a $200m movie to upset the very people who helped his first film become such a success. Sure, we can fully understand him being perturbed by that film’s toxic discourse, but to purposely spend years turning an enormous production like Joker: Folie à Deux into a troll job for a smattering of people on the internet? That doesn’t add up.
To me, Joker: Folie à Deux is perhaps the natural endpoint of subverting expectations twice. Going into the first film, people expected an origin story of a Batman villain, and instead, they got a drama in the vein of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, with nary a mention of the Caped Crusader. At that time, though, the fact that Joker was so different from what people expected turned out to be a good thing.
By the time you get to a sequel which subverts expectations yet again, though, perhaps that goodwill has worn off. This time, maybe the audience didn’t want to be surprised. This time, perhaps they did want Fleck to poison Gotham’s water supply or go on a crime spree with Harley. Instead, they had to listen to him singing about finally finding love – and that’s proved to be a much tougher sell.
