When Joker hit the screens in 2019, the dual oppositional personalities of Arthur Fleck AKA Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), the bar was high for a potential sequel. In the sequel Joker: Folie Á Deux, we pick up an imprisoned Fleck awaiting trial for his vicious crimes. Inside Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Inane, Fleck finds love with fellow inmate Harleen “Lee” Quinzel AKA Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga).
Todd Phillips helmed the film with co-writer Scott Silver. Joker: Folie À Deux went bold and wild as it deeply explored who is the real Arthur Fleck, the deeply-disturbed man behind Joker via an intensive character study and what makes him tick.
Similarly, Lee confronts her own crisis of identity as she figures out why she wants to be near such a person. Nonetheless, she’s a catalyst for drawing Arthur away from his dark and glib world as we explore her origin story. Their love story sets the stage for Folie.
ackie Sullivan (Brendon Gleeson) & Joaquin Phoenix (Arthur Fleck/ Joker) Photo by Scott Garfield/ Warner Bros. Pictures
There are two main locations – the claustrophobic prison and the court room.
Planning Joker: Folie À Deux
The idea for Folie arose midway through filming Joker. Joaquin Phoenix considered new places of psychological extremes to take Arthur and Joker.
Is it me or is it getting crazier out there? – Joker
This question resonated with audiences from the first film and became the springboard for writing the second film. Like many successful films, Folie needs to speak to the state of the world today – Joker: Folie À Deux delivers. The salve for so much craziness is love and that is precisely what the film leans into. Love between two damaged people.
Much of Fleck’s mental state stems from his inner fantasy world that he can’t separate from reality. He’s disconnected from his authentic self and needs to define it. This drives his relentless search to determine who he really is. There has to be more substance to this failed party clown with psychopathic tendencies. For Arthur Fleck, the process involved navigating the painful tug of war with his shadow self. He does this through song and dance.
Scott Silver
We meet Fleck at a very low ebb. He’s isolated in a gritty prison awaiting his future to play out.
Not only is he wrestling with his inner demons, but he’s also a product of a correctional system designed to beat him down to a pulp. He’s unseen and unheard by the wider community, bar his small, committed group of supporters. But there is always a glimmer of hope which punctuates the film. There is a slim possibility of Arthur being released.
The Uncomfortable Joker: Folie À Deux Tone
The tonal template for Joker is based on the grimy streets portrayed in Robert Di Niro’s Mean Streets.
Joker: Folie À Deux tracks a bi-ploar, unsettling tone as it traverses both light and heavy spectra. Sometimes it’s an earnest courtroom drama which quickly pivots to the comedic folly of song. Other times, it’s achingly real and other times, it cannonballs into sheer fantasy.
The unified cinematic experience combines gritty realism with character-driven storytelling. The walls were closing in on Fleck and eventually crashed to reveal a new world.
Folie À Deux – A Shared Madness
As part of his journey to self-understanding and self-actulization, Fleck finds solace through song with Lee.
These outlandish, larger than life characters, find a grounded place to express themselves and evolve because they truly understand each other. Folie À Deux is a psychological term used to define a madness transferred between two people namely Fleck and Lee. It can refer to a shared delusion, insanity, or fantasy. Generally, it relates to two people, but in Folie, it extends into two selves – Fleck and Joker. The film plays with the concept of one character being sane and the other insane.
Todd Phillips. Photo by Tristan Fewings/ Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures
Fleck is determined to form a meaningful human connection between his two warring selves as well as with Lee. Tired of being a psychopath, Arthur ultimately wants to position himself in the midst of a human emotional experience.
The Music Inside
Joker: Folie À Deux is arguably a musical of sorts. It’s not simply a psychological drama breaking into occasional interludes of song and dance to let some steam escape from the pressure cooker. The music is Arthur’s therapy, his compass, his self-compassion, and his truth. It leads to answers. It’s a respite for a man on death row. The songs transcend dialogue to express Joker’s innermost narrative beyond what words can’t describe.
Notably, the songs in the movie aren’t pitch perfect, nor do they feel over-rehearsed and glossy, much like grunge music in its heyday. They feel flawed, spontaneous with room to play, just like our characters. Music is the thread that stitches together the two worlds of reality and fantasy with songs on the roof and in a chapel.
The music also extends to secondary characters like prison guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendon Gleeson) who succumbs to his inner showman and breaks into song and dance. Jackie is more than comic relief. He’s drawn to Fleck’s star power and fan base energy and gets him into a music class. He senses that Arthur’s talents are wasted in prison where he languishes.
