Joker 2: Cuckoo Boogaloo is a dreary indulgent mess and I love it. Who knew Todd Phillips had it in him to create something complex and provocative? That the people he’s provoking are the fans of the first film is just, chef’s kiss. The film makes it clear, you never cared about Arthur Fleck, only Joker.
“The sequel nobody asked for,” has been the rallying cry of “unfuckable hate nerds”, as Marc Maron would describe them, ever since it was announced that Lady Gaga would be playing a version of Harley Quinn (Lee Quinzel) and that the film would be a musical. Personally, that was the exact moment I knew I had to see whatever zany concoction Phillips, Phoenix, and Gaga were cooking up. Whether it would turn out to be a car crash you couldn’t look away from or cinematic brilliance, I knew I’d be entertained. With beautifully batshit and bold decisions made throughout the film, the end result is somewhere in the middle.
As a lover of vibes-based films, this certainly passes the vibe check. Do I understand everything that happened in the film? Not a fuck. But that doesn’t stop me from picking up what Phillips was putting down. David Lynch ran so Todd Phillips could walk, yet it seems the mass audience wants him to keep crawling along with them.
The title ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ probably should have tipped off that we weren’t getting a crime caper out of this film. Instead, as the title promises, we get an exploration of delusions and how they spread. It’s a layered metatextual psychodrama that holds a mirror up to the audience, but the audience are vampires so they can’t see themselves. They suck the life out of the characters they idolise on their screens with no regard for the real person behind the mask. It’s a critique of idol worship that lays bare the dangers of cults of personality, that also manages to be an indictment of the American mental health and justice systems. That’s pretty impressive for the guy who made Old School.
The musical numbers were a fun break from the general bleakness, and drove home the fantasy world that Quinzel and Fleck were creating for themselves. It’s a jukebox musical with most of the songs being covers of classics from the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. I’m guessing this is because they’re songs both characters knew from watching TV or theatre (Gaga has said she sees Lee as a theatre kid), and would fantasise about one day being the star of the show. Gaga and Phoenix do a phenomenal job at singing as their characters, and overall deliver fully-embodied performances that kept me riveted for the 2 hours and 18 minutes runtime.
While it’s a rather depressing film overall, I found myself laughing throughout. Sometimes at Arthur’s dry jokes, sometimes at the blatant “fuck you’s” to the audience, but the biggest laugh came when Joker, representing himself in court, put on a Southern drawl like he was Atticus Finch. It fucking broke me.
Something I found particularly interesting was the idea that the Joker character was all an act. A psychiatrist mentions it early in the movie, and Arthur admits to it at the end, but everyone else wants him to have this split personality of Joker so they can live vicariously through him. But it was him, Arthur, who killed those people wearing the mask of Joker as a way to intentionally act out his own desires. Sure, he has a myriad of psychological and social issues, but him taking responsibility for his actions is an important step in his personal redemption. He spoke the truth instead of continuing the charade, and it cost him everything.
While many fans seem to have expected Arthur Fleck to be some canonical version of The Joker, it was clear from the first film that this was never going to be the clown prince of crime. Even as an Elseworld version. The reality is that society isn’t kind to mentally-ill loners, and if you want to live out your wannabe school-shooter revenge fantasy through a comic book villain, then you should probably try and engage a little deeper with what the film is trying to tell you. If you cared about the Arthur Fleck character in the first film because he was “literally me”, you should care about him even more in this film as he wrestles with the consequences of his actions.
This film has cult classic written all over it. I have no doubt it will be rewatched countless times by a small but devoted fanbase, and will be analysed and dissected ad nauseam. Sure, it’s a box-office “flop” and is being panned by audiences and critics alike, but that describes, like, half of every list of the 100 greatest films. Is this one of the greatest films of all time? I doubt it, but it’ll probably be more culturally relevant in the long run than many films on those lists.
It’s safe to say that the real Joker all along is Todd Phillips. He Trojan-horsed the fuck out of the more toxic fanbase of superhero films with one of their favourite characters, and lit a mountain of money on fire on the way out. That’s entertainment.