After making off with the Golden Lion in 2019, Joker spawned a sequel that has also serendipitously waltzes into the Venice Film Festival lineup. If you keep up with all the comic book universes, you already know Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical with Joaquin Phoenix reprising the titular antihero and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. (Was Margot Robbie unavailable, or could she just not sing? This is indeed a jukebox musical, though it’s actually more fitting to categorize it as a courtroom drama, as the plot mostly revolves around the murder trial of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix). It’s a completely different tone to what was taken in the last film – and not in a good way.

Folie à Deux opens with a cartoon logo and an animated sequence directed by Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville). Viewers can easily mistake it for a short film separate from the feature presentation since it’s been given the title Me and My Shadow. It’s a Looney Tunes-like slapstick take on the gist of what’s to come, but it mostly comes off as a mildly amusing show of corporate synergy. It then seamlessly expands from Academy ratio to scope format and fades to live action inside Arkham, where Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is institutionalized and awaits trial. He mostly keeps to himself, intermittently interacting with the abusive guards, the main one played by Brendan Gleeson.

The Musical Concept Is Mishandled in ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’

Due to good behavior, Arthur is allowed to partake in musical therapy. Lee (Gaga), a member of the choir, immediately lets it be known that she’s a fan of his and is plotting their escape by setting the place on fire. Arthur’s attorney, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), warns him that Lee’s even more unhinged than she lets on; not only does she apparently voluntarily commit herself, but she also concocts elaborate personal histories to gain Arthur’s favor. Lee later manages to sneak in and have sex with him while he’s in solitary. Even Arthur of all people has to ask her, “Are you crazy?”

The musical conceit has a lot of potential. I mean, Joker’s famous descent down the West 167th Street step stairs in The Bronx looks like it would fit perfectly in a musical. But with Folie à Deux, the idea seems half-baked. The musical numbers are perpetually at odds with the gritty realism director Phillips aims to achieve — which is not to say this can’t be done; Dancer in the Dark is a successful example. Even during the fantasy musical numbers, which give cover to stray from the overall aesthetics of the film, Phillips is just incapable of delivering the genre’s requisite razzle dazzle that would surely complement Joker’s persona. Fleck gets an impressive tap number, but the film is otherwise devoid of any choreography.

The Songs Aren’t Chosen Wisely in ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’

Speaking of the music, it’s an unmitigated mess. The lush extradiegetic orchestral score by Hildur Guðnadóttir, an Oscar winner for the original Joker, constantly clashes with the ditties the characters perform. Perhaps this is deliberate, but the resulting dissonance mostly makes the singers sound like they’re off-key. While the score itself is occasionally stirring, none of the songs serve their purpose – unless the purpose is to substitute the lyrics for actual dialogue. The songs, ranging from standards like “I’ve Got the World on a String,” to show tunes like “That’s Entertainment!,” to adult contemporary staples such as “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” seem to have been selected arbitrarily, without period and genre specificities to contextualize the characters’ backgrounds and tastes.

Besides, the film is at its core a courtroom drama, where the presiding Justice Herman Rothwax (Bill Smitrovich) orders from the outset that no funny business is permitted. Films of this ilk normally build up toward a show-stopping closing oration, but even that falls short here, since we have Joker, in his red suit and clown makeup, sitting on a stool puffing a cigarette – speaking of anticlimactic.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Give Underwhelming Performances as Joker and Harley Quinn
Image via Warner Bros

Joker is still Joker, so Phoenix gets to reprise that whole bit. However, Phoenix has to recalibrate his performance, as Arthur is withering away, withdrawn, and seemingly about to pass out. Though without the awkwardness and nervous energy of his last pass at the character, Phoenix comes off as if he’s doing a Daniel Day-Lewis impersonation. In his interactions with Lee, however, he resembles neither Joker nor Arthur, but rather his character in the film Her.

Sorry, Little Monsters, Gaga adds nothing to the proceedings. To be fair, she’s not given a whole lot to do. Her character has no depth, and we only learn her backstory secondhand through Maryanne. For the most part, even during the musical numbers, she has a completely blank facial expression, rendering the character unrecognizable from the Robbie era. Phillips had one job, which was to recreate the jittery cringe of the original Joker to capitalize on the commercial and awards successes. A middling courtroom tale and half-baked musical is not the kind of victory lap anyone wants. Your best bet is to go rewatch The People’s Joker and pretend this never happened.

Joker: Folie à Deux had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.