Reviewing 'Joker: Folie a Deux'
019: the film that confronts its own audience head-on.
"They Believe Arthur Fleck To Be Some Kind Of Martyr. Well, He's Not. He's A Monster"
-Harvey Dent, ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’
You may have taken the time out of your day last September to visit the cinema and watch the highly anticipated ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Directed by Todd Phillips after its debut. Your reaction to the choices made may, however, vary greatly from mine. The immediate response to this film was widely negative and greatly disappointed. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed the film and the risks it took. Even though the movie took a very different approach to who the Joker is, as well as with the style of production – for example, having musical elements – I believe that the risks that Phillips took were ingenious and created a unique cinematic experience.
I do agree with many other reviews that declare if you liked the first film, ‘Joker’ (also directed by Todd Phillips), you may not like the second and that if you were sceptical regarding the first film, then this second edition may have been more successful. I found ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ to be the perfect conclusion to the previous film’s ending mostly because of the fanbase it curated.
‘Joker’ was an immediate cult classic – which was intrinsically ironic, and counterproductive, lending itself to the plot of the sequel. By becoming such a fan favourite, the setup for ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ was organically laid. The setup genuinely couldn’t have been better. The public took The Joker, aka Arthur Fleck in a humorous light and observed him from a mindset that placed him on a pedestal; the same thing that the crowds did within the film by becoming a protesting cult surrounding his clown image, all donning masks and taking to the streets after his arrest post-murder of the Talk-Show Host, Murray Franklin. I personally believe that the real-world audience’s response to the first film very well may have informed the choices made within the creative process for ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ immensely.
The film opens with a looney-toons-style depiction of what happened in the first Joker film, almost like a recap for the audience. We see Murray shot and killed on television by a shadow version of Arthur that took his place on the stage whilst the real Arthur had been locked backstage. This cartoon also presents the whole concept of the film in a short introduction; demonstrated as we are told later that Arthur’s lawyer believes that the Joker was a split personality of Arthur’s because of trauma – depicted within the cartoon as Arthur’s shadow figure. I believed this to be an interesting alternative take on the ‘Joker’ persona compared to the many other iterations. Now, you might find this iteration too abstract and derivative from the Joker that had been introduced within the first film – Arthur was mentally ill, yes, but his acts were clearly calculated within the film, such as when he killed the men on the subway station and when he killed his old coworker within his flat. However, I believe that Folie à Deux demonstrates the differentiation between what Arthur believes and what his lawyers, therapists and such feel quite artistically throughout the film but most especially in the ending court scene.
I believe that Phillips drew immense comparisons between the real-world audience for 2019’s ‘Joker’ and the audience that viewed Arthur Fleck within the film with clear intention. When Arthur is interviewed by Paddy and asked if he is speaking to Arthur or the Joker, he combats it expertly with the rhetorical question “Do you really care? You don’t […] You want sensationalism. You just want to talk about my mistakes, not about who I am now”. The audience for Folie à Deux only wanted another cookie-cutter Joker film. Phillips was willing to deconstruct the character of Arthur Fleck in his style and wasn’t afraid to commit to an in-depth character study into the mentally ill mind using abstract methods, rather than produce another ‘film bro’ Joker movie featuring the ‘mad clown prince of Gotham’ that people love to see. Phillips’ iteration of Joker is more human and sympathetic: he’s not shooting gums with banners saying ‘bang!’ or asking, ‘Why so serious?’. He’s just a person who needs dire help.
Throughout the film, we are faced with the concept of Arthur’s guilt, ‘the Joker’ as a separate entity, and the concept of mental health in tandem with crime. It’s my opinion that the title, ‘Folie à Deux’, meaning ‘madness for two’, may have been a double entendre and more aimed towards the two sides of Arthur Fleck – himself and the Joker rather than himself and Lee (Harley Quinn). Throughout the film, we the audience find out alongside Fleck, that Lee is a rich girl arsonist with a deep fascination with Arthur. She placed herself in Arkham just to see him as the Joker. She insists that he is the Joker and that within that state, he is perfect. She echoes this to the lawyer, insisting that “He’s not sick! He’s perfect”. Poor Arthur is quite obviously enamoured by her immediately; feeling that someone finally gets him and consequently falls deeply in love with Lee - to the point where he believes he cannot go on without her. Lee had manipulated him, however, and was not in love with Arthur Fleck. She only desired him for the symbol he had the potential of becoming – not something he needed but something he wanted. She, too, never fully understood him like Arthur wanted her to. This is foreshadowed from even the beginning of the film when Lee manages to visit Arthur in solitary confinement and only allows him to be intimate with her after he dons the Joker makeup; saying “I want to see the real you”. She was in love with the Joker persona and what he stood for as a symbol. This begins to be demonstrated throughout Arthur’s musical sequences. When Lee stops looking at him during the love ballad, she insists it’s because “We’re singing for them”; a metaphor for Joker being a public persona – a prophet of sorts for the lower class – rather than a part of Arthur’s trauma and struggle in life. When Arthur says to give the people what they want, Lee shoots him – a symbol of her unfaithfulness to any truth but her interpretation of who Joker was. It foreshadows their downfall in the final act: their love affair ends when Arthur declares that the ‘Joker’ isn’t real in his final court statement and essentially undercuts everything the Joker supposedly stood for.
Now – what does the Joker stand for? In 2019’s ‘Joker’ (the first film as a product), the movie advocates for those who cannot do it for themselves, sticking it to the bullies of society, and criticising the government, alongside the widespread public, for their treatment of the mentally ill and the disabled alike. The Joker (according to the crowds) stands for self-advocacy, revenge, and the creation of a demonstration of – as he put it – “what happens when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that treats him like trash”. He represents tyranny and anarchy. However, the Joker that Arthur perceived himself as being, and the Joker that the audience within the film perceived him as, are also different. To Arthur, Joker was a method of processing his very real, life-long trauma and representing his pain. To the crowds, the murder of the bullies in the subway station was symbolic of the capitalistic agenda - the ‘upper level’ - being overturned. The Joker was a representative of the mentally ill, the socially rejected, and the poor. They expected someone who would fight for their cause, dismantle the structure that wasn’t working within the society of Gotham, and create an opening for change for the poor/sick man. This is demonstrated throughout the use of ‘When the Saints Come Marching In’ being sung by his inmates; the prisoners are also looking to the Joker for their retribution. They reclaim this song from the guards, such as Jackie, who opens the film by whistling the tune. If Arthur were to get out, become free, and be placed back onto the streets, he’d essentially become the saint of their rejected society. By singing ‘I want to be in that number’ they are communicating that they, too, wish to be accepted back into the society that left them behind. They want to be a part of Joker’s revolution.
However, this narrative is false. Arthur Fleck is not the poor man’s saviour as the crowds want him to be. Throughout the trial, we watch as Lee manipulates him into going off his medication, firing his lawyer, and morphing back into the Joker throughout the trials, essentially creating a display within the live-streamed courtroom. Upon hearing his trauma repeated before him in graphic detail, hearing his neighbour recall his own mother’s poisonous words regarding him, having to cross-examine his ex-coworker Mr. Puddles, etc. – the façade breaks. Arthur seems to break. He fantasises about killing everyone in the courtroom to ‘The Joker is Me’; the lyrics once again outline the audience’s lack of concern ‘as long as there’s a jester’. He ridicules Puddles in his cross-examination; mocking his name, using a southern accent and making a mockery of the crimes that he was on trial for. Arthur insists that Puddles never saw him. However, when he cries out and asks Arthur “Do you know what that feels like, Arthur? You were the only one at work who never made fun of me. You were the only one who was nice to me.”, Arthur is shown how his actions truly hurt not only one of the only people he truly liked and didn’t want to hurt, but one of the only people who liked Arthur as Arthur Fleck and not Joker. When he returns to Arkham the guards beat him to a pulp. When Ricky, one of the inmates Arthur was closest with, begins to sing in protest again, Jackie chokes him to death.
Arthur’s closing statement reflects his severe mental break following the death of his last true ally. He admits that he does not have a split personality: Arthur did those things. He confesses to his charges and to the previously unrevealed crime of smothering his mother to the jury directly in a full-circle monologue; poised like a stand-up comedian, a reflection of the scene that brought him onto Murray’s show to begin with in ‘Joker’ and delivers his final sullen joke: “Knock, Knock. Whose there? Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck who?”. He becomes the joke in his last personal revelation. He was responsible for his behaviour completely. Despite his trauma and his lack of support, he made his choices knowingly. When Arthur confessed to the crimes on live television, he essentially denounced his fanbase and separated himself from the mentally ill and socially rejected individuals who looked up to him throughout his live-streamed trial. He admitted that he had no excuse for his behaviour and did it solely because he wanted to. The Joker was not a saviour or a symbol, but a costume Arthur put on as an excuse for his violent behaviour. We as the audience are being told that without the Joker as a symbol, all Arthur really could be described as was a bully like everyone else who had hurt him in the past. He simply killed those he looked down on or saw as beneath him – such as his co-worker, the men on the subway, Murray, and then eventually his dying abusive mother.
As the jury declares Arthur guilty on all counts, a car bomb explodes – a response from the crowd to Arthur saying he wanted to ‘Blow it all up’ (meaning his characterisation, the trial and his life as the Joker). Arthur manages to climb from the rubble and has an eerie interaction with a man dressed in his iconic Joker costume. I believe this scene symbolised Arthur Fleck leaving his life as Joker behind. He is taken in by the fan and they attempt to smuggle him out of the city before he escapes out of the car and runs to Lee. However, she rejects him and his truth as Arthur Fleck. We truly see Arthur’s change here as he begs Lee to “Stop singing”.
Arthur is re-arrested and taken back to Arkham. This leads directly to Arthur’s death (a very polarising ending within the public’s reactions, I found). Arthur is stabbed repeatedly by another prisoner and is told that he “got what he fucking deserved”: a regurgitation of what Arthur had said to Murray on his Late-Night show. When his own words are spat back at him by another mentally ill person, the community essentially rejects Arthur. He is not their saviour, and he doesn’t represent them. In some ways, you could argue that his killer might become the new Joker – after all, when he falls to the ground and dies, Arthur sings ‘I want a fine, young son to take my place’ as the killer carves the iconic smile into his face from the background.
To conclude, I believe Arthur Fleck’s story is a sad tale of a mentally ill man who we can take great pity on – however it also reminds us that causation and consequences are not relative. You can be disabled and yet, still be held accountable for your behaviour. The story being told to us is not one of revenge and anarchy, but one of sensationalism, mental illness and the mistreatment of the disabled within our society. Your opinion of the film might vary from mine, and you may wish to criticise how it was created – being produced as a musical, being based around his court hearings rather than more action-packed scenes of destruction – hell, a sequel being made at all. All varying opinions are valid; Phillips’ rendition is artistic, and outrageous and breaks the mould of who the Joker has been, all the way back to the comics. You might not enjoy being confronted with such a harsh light on the way sick people are often put on display and mocked for their differences. Joker Folie à Deux wasn’t afraid to point its finger at the audience of the first film and say ‘No, you don’t get it’. Arthur Fleck is a murderer, and he did terrible things, but he needn’t be immortalised or turned into a figure of some sort. His crimes were all against people who wronged him personally, not to make a point. Arthur didn’t care about amusing his audience throughout the trial – he only looked to Lee. He wanted to be loved and seen, just like you and me. I believe that ‘Joker Folie à Deux’ is a sensational production that ties together the ending of Arthur Fleck’s story in a strikingly emotive and forgiving light. Arthur died an honest, free man – not physically but mentally. He gets what he wants and is finally able to leave it all behind. He was no longer caged by his illness or anyone’s misplaced perceptions of him. He died as just Arthur Fleck – not as Joker.
Thank you for reading my review of Joker: ‘Folie à Deux’! I wrote this in my last semester for my persuasive writing module after watching the movie. I had been obsessed with it immediately after leaving the cinema with my friends and had spent the time walking back to my accommodation with my friends writing my Letterboxd review - that’s what this started as. Then, when I got my assignment, I immediately knew I was gonna expand my thoughts and make it into my persuasive piece. Now it’s been graded (64/100 thank youuuu) I thought it was high time I actually share my thoughts since I put so much work into this assignment and really enjoyed producing it.
Once again, thank you so much for reading, I hope you guys might agree or at least some validity within my assessment of the film. Let me know if you guys would like anything else like this from me - I have so many opinions on different media like this (films, albums, tv shows, books etc…) and I’d love a reason to do more research like this. If you have any requests, feel free to comment!!!
Hoping to catch you next time! Thx for reading xoxo
Yours, Jas. ∩⑅∩
Sources / Bibliography
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https://www.counterfire.org/article/bad-romance-a-review-of-joker-folie-a-deux/.
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https://screenrant.com/joker-2-hate-movie-wanted/.
Romano, Evan. 2024. “In Defense of Joker: Folie à Deux.” Men’s Health. October 7, 2024.
Phillips, Todd, dir. Joker. Warner Bros., 2019.
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https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240904-joker-folie-a-deux-review.
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“Joker: Folie à Deux Movie Review (2024) | Roger Ebert.” 2024. Roger Ebert. October 3, 2024.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/joker-folie-a-deux-dc-film-review.
Hill, Ethan. 2025. “Everyone Is Wrong about ‘Joker: Folie à Deux,’ I’m Here to Defend It.” The Hoya. 2025.
https://thehoya.com/guide/everyone-is-wrong-about-joker-folie-a-deux-im-here-to-defend-it/.
Bagwell, Charlie. 2024. “Joker: Folie à Deux” Is Not the Movie Anyone Needs, but the One “Joker” Fans Deserve - . October 10, 2024.
https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2024/10/lifestyle-joker-folie-a-deux-review .
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https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/joker-folie-a-deux/.
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