Warning: spoilers ahead.
The unexpected billion-dollar success of Todd Phillips’ R-rated “Joker” (2019) on a modest $55 million budget makes the $300 million budgeted “Joker: Folie à Deux’s” 37-million-dollar opening weekend feel like a flop. Over two weeks the sequel grossed $167 million worldwide tragically failing expectations, jeopardizing profitability and threatening the hope of breaking even, leaving Phillips chasing films like Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga” and Eli Roth’s “Borderlands” to the bottom of the box office heap.
The movie finds Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) awaiting trial for multiple counts of murder in Gotham’s Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane. One of the guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) gets him into a music program in the minimum-security wing. There, Fleck meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga). The disturbed Fleck and psychotic Quinzel fall into a shared delusional disorder, “folie à deux,” revolving around the iconic persona of the Joker expressed largely through their mutual love for show tunes and popular music. This pushes “Joker: Folie à Deux” squarely into the musical genre.
Not everyone enjoys musicals, which is one reason this film has become divisive among ardent “Joker” fans. Phillips’ initial film struck a chord with its core audience, but Phillips’ goal in this film is more character study than fan service. From the opening Looney Tunes-style cartoon, it’s apparent that the film will subvert expectations. Later, during a fantasy sequence reminiscent of “The Sonny and Cher Show” variety TV series (1976–1977), Fleck, as the Joker, provides a meta-commentary on the desires of the target audience saying to his
