138 min | R | October 4, 2024 | Warner Bros. Pictures
Todd Phillips makes a Joker sequel that nobody asked for and turns it into a jukebox musical that nobody wanted. The result is a film at war with itself and its audience.
Arthur Fleck sits in Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for the murders he committed as the Joker. He meets Lee Quinzel in music therapy. She is a fellow patient who has seen what he did on television and loves him for it. Or loves the Joker. The distinction matters and the film knows it matters but cannot decide what to do with that knowledge. Todd Phillips structures the sequel as a courtroom drama interrupted by musical fantasy sequences. Arthur and Lee sing standards from the Great American Songbook in elaborate dream sequences that exist in Arthur’s deteriorating mind. The musical numbers are the film’s thesis statement. Arthur Fleck wants to be someone else. The film wants to be something else. Neither succeeds.
Joaquin Phoenix returns to the role that won him an Oscar and gives a performance that is committed and physically grueling and ultimately purposeless. He loses the weight again. He contorts his body again. He inhabits the damage again. But the script gives him nowhere to go. Arthur spends the film being acted upon rather than acting. Phoenix does everything asked of him and what is asked is not enough. Lady Gaga plays Lee with a cool detachment that works in the musical sequences and flatlines in the dramatic ones. She is performing a performance of a character performing a performance. Brendan Gleeson plays a guard with quiet menace. Catherine Keener plays Arthur’s defense attorney with professional composure that the film discards when it no longer needs her.
Phillips shot the musical sequences with cinematographer Lawrence Sher in a style that evokes classic Hollywood musicals. The lighting shifts. The color palette warms. The compositions open up. These sequences are technically accomplished and emotionally disconnected. The courtroom scenes are flat and procedural. The Arkham scenes are grim in ways that feel obligatory rather than observed. Hildur Gudnadottir returns to score the film and her work is the most consistent element. The sound design during the musical transitions is effective. The production design of Arkham is detailed and oppressive. None of these technical achievements serve a story that knows where it is going.
The first Joker film succeeded because it committed fully to its vision of one broken man in a broken city. This sequel cannot commit to anything. It is a musical that does not trust its musical numbers. It is a courtroom drama that does not care about the verdict. It is a love story between two people the film does not believe are capable of love. Phillips ends the film with a choice that negates the first film’s central question and answers it with contempt for the audience that embraced it. That is either brave or cowardly depending on whether you believe a filmmaker owes anything to the story he started telling.