by G. E. Uke, Reporter

When I normally go out to preview a movie, I do so at 7 pm. By the time the movie is finished and I’ve made the trip back home, it’s at least 10 pm, so I don’t have the bandwidth to write a review until the following day.  I want to give my best feedback, and take some time to think about my response before I commit words to digital paper. But in the case of JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX, I don’t need to do that.

JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX was powerful and emotional. It had excellent cinematography and acting, and Joaquin Phoenix did an amazing job portraying Arthur Fleck. Lady Gaga did a very good Harley Quinn, and she gave it her own spin which was fresh for that character. Brendan Gleeson does a very good “abusive prison guard” routine, to the degree that I found myself actually hating him. The whole movie reminded me vaguely of the musical “Chicago” in terms of its ambiance. I need to get this out of the way right off the bat, because credit was certainly due. The 1970s-80s ambiance was consistent, and the corrupt and run-down depiction of Gotham City was spot on. I could see the Joker existing in a world like that.

Special attention needs to be paid to the character of Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga), because the juxtaposition of that character in this movie is profound. I remember when Harley Quinn was first introduced in Batman: The Animated Series. In every other rendition of this character, the relationship between the Joker and Harley is “abuser and victim”. JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX turns this around by making Harley a deluded fantasist and stalker who gives Joker false love and then emotionally abandons him the moment he stops playing into her narrative. Watching Joaquin Phoenix develop hope for the future and then have that hope crushed is toxic and heartbreaking. But it was well done for all that.

That’s all the praise I’ve got. The rest of this is going to be a rant, so buckle up.

First, JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX is a TRAGEDY. There are no moral lessons in it. Arthur Fleck was raised by an insane mother, abused as a child, and then bullied as an adult. He snapped because those are precisely the kinds of things that make a person maladjusted and nuts. I wanted to see his life get better, or for him to develop relevance or catharsis or SOMETHING. Instead he spends the entire film incarcerated and being threatened, bullied, raped, manipulated, and conjectured by the media. The Gotham justice system spends THE ENTIRE MOVIE torturing this man while he listlessly waits for the axe to fall. He is fed false hope by a crazy spoiled rich girl who develops an obsession with him, and then she abandons him. He falls into despair, gets murdered, and then the movie is over.

Second, the lack of emotionally intelligent humans makes it feel like an attack on people with mental health challenges. All authority figures (judges, guards, lawyers, etc.) are narcissistic, condescending, myopic, abusive, or cruel. Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) is an underage grease-weasel with a permanent sneer, more concerned with ego than justice. Arthur’s lawyer (Catherine Keener) cares more about her narrative of Arthur than getting to know him. When I saw all this happening it made me think of other situations where society mistreats people until they lash out, then glamorizes them for entertainment value instead of making a good faith effort to address the problems and injustices that shaped them. Not a great message, guys. Not a great message at all.

Rating:

All in all, despite being well shot and some excellent acting, JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX is a movie about nihilism and despair. It is a celebration of contempt for humanity: one of those beautiful movies that emotionally well-adjusted people probably will only see once. It is uncomfortable, tense, suspenseful, and depressing in equal measure. I’m not one of those naive people who believes they’re entitled to a happy ending, far from it, but I do believe the messages we put into the world shape the societal consensus of good and evil. So it is the moral obligation of filmmakers who produce media consumed by millions to work SOME sort of progressive lesson or message into their work. JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX does not do this at all. For this reason above all: its failure of humanity in regard to fellowship, I give it 2 of 5 stars.

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