Movie Reviews
Joker: Folie à Deux can’t find the right note (Movie Review)
When director Todd Phillips released his movie Joker in 2019, there was actual concern that the film might be so powerful it would inspire real-world violence. Threats were made, screenings were canceled and there were undercover police officers in movie theaters.
Nothing ended up happening, of course — it’s a movie, not a mind control device — but at the time, you could kinda-sorta see why people were panicking. The U.S. was on edge after the Charlottesville riots a couple years prior, and Joker did indeed tap into a sort of generalized angst favored by angry young men through the ages: the government sucks, families suck, life sucks and we should burn it all down. I think Joker’s biggest problem as a movie is that it can’t reconcile its attempts at significance with how silly and thin that philosophy is — I mean, this is technically a Batman spinoff, is it really going to present us with a credible theory of humanity? But I give it credit for effectively channeling that kind of disaffected, adolescent rage. Joaquin Phoenix gives a luminous performance under assured direction from Phillips. Applause all around, moral panic or not.
I don’t think anyone will be concerned that Joker: Folie à Deux might move us to madness. Phoenix returns as failed comedian turned public menace Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker, and he’s as committed as ever, compulsively laughing in a way that looks painful and baring his flesh-stretched-over-bones body. Lady Gaga comes aboard as Lee Quinzel, better known to Batman fans as Harley Quinn, and turns in a solid performance. And Phillips still knows how to compose a frame and pace a scene. The problem is none of it seems to add up to much this time.
The movie doesn’t lack for ideas, but too many feel half-formed. Take the love story. Arthur is in prison following the events of the first film, where he meets Lee in a music therapy class. She’s an admirer of the Joker and may be just as crazy as he is. They quickly fall in love. At one point the movie raises the possibility that Lee has ulterior motives, which is interesting, but that angle is quickly dropped, as if the movie can’t quite decide what to do with the character.
In the end, Lee isn’t sketched with as much detail as Arthur himself, who goes on a bit of perplexing journey. The first Joker movie traces his arc from pathetic malcontent to symbol of chaos. Folie à Deux takes him back to the start; he’s again sheepish and unsure of himself, beaten down by prison life out of the spotlight. He has to work back up to his Joker persona again.
When it finally emerges, we get probably the best scene of the movie, where Arthur belittles a witness as he represents himself during his own murder trial. This scene radiates the same kind of “I didn’t ask to be born, dad” energy the first movie channeled so well. But Folie à Deux is far more skeptical of this outlook. It’s interesting that the movie is asking us to look at that ethos in a new way, but it also means it’s cutting itself off from the wellspring of its energy. Folie à Deux has less of the dark resentful joy that made the first Joker pop, and more resigned dreariness.
Here’s another big element we haven’t addressed yet: Folie à Deux is a musical, specifically a jukebox musical featuring mainly big band hits from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. The idea is that Arthur and Lee are so full of emotion that they must break out into song when words fail, which is standard operating procedure for musicals.
It works about half the time. Some of the musical sequences, most of which are set in Arthur’s fantasy world, are among the best scenes in the film. I really enjoyed the soulful rendition of “Gonna Build a Mountain,” featuring Lady Gaga wailing on piano and belting full force while Joaquin Phoenix dances up a storm. I also liked the Sonny-&-Cher variety show fantasy where the two of them sing “To Love Somebody.”
Other moments fall flatter, like Arthur’s first growly rendition of “For Once In My Life.” Audiences have been skeptical of musicals for decades; it takes a lot to win them over, and giving the first big number to Phoenix, who is far outclassed by Lady Gaga in the singing department, isn’t the best move. Gaga herself is only allowed to really let rip in the pure fantasy sequences; in the “real world,” she purposefully constricts her voice so she can sound more like an ordinary person. I get why they want to do this for realism purposes, but also: why are you hiring Lady Gaga, one of the greatest pop stars of her generation, if you’re not going to let her give it all she has?
So we have some songs that are played for realism and some that are played as fantasy; overall, the fantastical bits are far more successful, although I did like Phoenix’s desperate singing phone call towards the end of the movie.
Joker: Folie à Deux spends a lot more time than you might expect rehashing the events of the first movie; the plot, which revolves around Arthur’s trial, kind of prevents it from forming an identity of its own. And then, right at the end, as if Phillips and company remembered this is a Batman spinoff during the last day on set, there’s a big action moment with practically nothing in the way of buildup.
So we have all these elements thrown into a blender: reassessing Arthur’s raison d’être from the first movie, a love story, a musical, an 11th hour action movie, and there’s a bit of a slice-of-life prison drama in there too. I feel like Folie à Deux should have picked something and committed. Much of the movie is striking to look at, but it never really finds a way through itself.
Movie Grade: C
dark. Next. Joker: Folie à Deux director promises this is his last DC movie (which he said last time). Joker: Folie à Deux director promises this is his last DC movie (which he said last time)
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Desert Warrior, 2026.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, Ghassan Massoud, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, Géza Röhrig, Numan Acar, Nabil Elouahabi, Hakeem Jomah, Ramsey Faragallah, Saïd Boumazoughe, and Soheil Bostani.
SYNOPSIS:
An honorable and mysterious rogue, known as Hanzala, makes himself an enemy of the Emperor Kisra after he helps a fugitive king and princess in the desert.
With aspirations of being a historical epic harkening back to the sword and sandal blockbusters of yesteryear, Rupert Wyatt’s seventeenth-century Arabia tale is about as generic and epically dull as one would expect from a film plainly titled Desert Warrior. Yes, there appear to be real locations here, and there are some admittedly sweeping shots of various tribes storming into battle on horseback and camels, but it’s all in service of a mess that is both miscast and questionable as the work of a filmmaking team of mostly white creatives.
The story of Emperor Kisraa (Ben Kingsley, a distracting presence even with only one or two scenes) rounding up women from other tribes to be his concubines, which inevitably became the catalyst for a revolution led by Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart), uniting all the divided clans and strategizing battle plans for flanking and poisoning, is undeniably ripe for cinematic treatment. The problem is that what’s here from Rupert Wyatt (and screenwriters Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, and David Self) is less than nothing in the primary creative process; no one seems to have a connection to Arabic heritage or culture, but they have made a flat-out boring film that is often narratively incoherent.
Following the death of her father and escaping the clutches of oppression, the honorable Princess Hind joins forces with a troubled, nameless bandit played by Anthony Mackie (he totally belongs here…), who seems to be here solely to give the movie some star power boost without running the risk of white savior accusations. Whatever the case may be, it’s jarring, but not quite as disorienting as how little screen time he has despite being billed as the lead and how little characterization he has. It is, however, equally disorienting as some of the other names that show up along the way.
As for the other factions, Princess Hind talks to them one by one, giving the film an adventure feel that fails to capitalize on using beautiful scenery in striking or visually poignant ways at almost every turn; the leaders of these tribes also often have no character. There also isn’t much of an understanding of why these tribes are at odds with one another. This movie is filled with dialogue that consistently and shockingly amounts to vague nothingness. Nevertheless, each tribe doesn’t take much convincing to begin with, meaning that not only is the film repetitive, but it’s also lifeless when characters are in conversation.
That Desert Warrior does occasionally spring to life, and a bloated 2+ running time is a small miracle. This is typically accomplished through the occasional fight scene between factions that also serves to demonstrate Princess Hind coming into her own as a warrior. When the tribes are united in a massive-scale battle, and that plan is unfolding step by step, one certainly sees why someone would want to tell this story and pull it off with such spectacle. However, this film is as dry as the desert itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
‘4’, the opening track on Richard D James’ (Aphex Twin) self titled 1996 album is a piece of music that beautifully balances the chaotic with the serene, the oppressive and the freeing. It’s a trick that James has pulled off multiple times throughout his career and it is a huge part of what makes him such an iconic and influential artist. Many people have laid the “next Aphex Twin” label on musicians who do things slightly different and when you actually hear their music you realise that, once again, the label is flawed and applied with a lazy attitude. Why mention this? Well, it turns out we’ve been looking for James’ heir apparent in the wrong artform. We’ve so zoned in on music that we’ve not noticed that another Celtic son of Cornwall is rewriting an art form with that highwire balancing act between chaos and beauty. That artist is writer, director and composer Mark Jenkin who over his last two feature films has announced himself as an idiosyncratic voice who is creating his very own language within the world of cinema. Jenkin’s films are often centred around coastal towns or islands and whilst they are experimental or even unsettling, there is always a big heart at the centre of the narrative. A heart that cares about family, tradition, culture, and the pull of ‘home’. Even during the horror of 2022’s brilliant Enys Men you were anchored by the vulnerability and determination of its main protagonist.
This month sees the release of Jenkin’s latest feature film, Rose of Nevada, which is set in a fractured and diminished Cornish coastal town. One day the fishing boat of the film’s title arrives back in harbour after being missing for thirty years. The boat is unoccupied. And frankly that is all the information you are going to get because to discuss any more plot would be unfair on you and disrespectful to Jenkin and the team behind the film. You the viewer should be the one who decides what it is about because thematically there are so many wonderful threads to pull on. This writer’s opinions on what it is about have ranged from a theme of sacrifice for the good of a community to the conflict within when part of you wants to run away from your roots whilst the other half longs to stay and be a lifelong part of its tapestry. Is it about Brexit? Could be. Is it about our own relationships with time and our curation of memory? Could be. Is it about both the positives and negatives of nostalgia? Could be. As a side note, anyone in their mid-40s, like me, who came of age in the 1990s will certainly find moments of warm recognition. Is the film about ghosts and how they haunt families? Could be…I think you get the point.
The elements that make the film so well balanced between chaos and calm are many. It is there in the differing performances between the brilliant two lead actors George MacKay and Callum Turner. It is there in the sound design which fluctuates from being unbearably harsh and metallic, to lulling and warm. It is there in the editing where short, sharp close ups on seemingly unimportant factors are counterbalanced with shots that are held for just that little bit too long. For a film set around the sea, it is apt that it can make you feel like you’re rolling on a stomach churning storm one minute, or a calming low tide the next. Dialogue can be front and centre or blurred and buried under static. One shot is bathed in harsh sunlight whilst the next can be drowned in interior shadows.
Rose of Nevada is Mark Jenkin’s most ambitious film to date yet he has not lost a single iota of innovation, singularity of vision or his gift for telling the most human of stories. It is a film that will tell you different things each time you see it and whilst there are moments that can confuse or beguile, there is so much empathy and love that it can leave you crying tears of emotional understanding. It is chaotic. It is beautiful. It is life……
Rose of Nevada is released on the 24th April.
Mark Jenkin Instagram | Threads
Released through the BFI – Instagram | Facebook
Review by Simon Tucker
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