Film Talk: The Clown Prince of Crime is back for a bad romance in Joker: Folie à Deux
We thought the jokes were over, and then they all just kept on coming...
Batman’s first, foremost and most elusive foe, The Joker has captured the imagination of comic-book fans and mainstream audiences alike for decades.
Played in the Adam West 60s Batman TV show by Cesar Romero, The Joker was given a far darker treatment when Tim Burton got his clutches into the Clown Prince of Crime for his 1989 movie. With Jack Nicholson donning those famed purple tails, a near career-best performance was delivered, and it seemed impossible to think of any other actor bringing the Caped Crusader’s arch-nemesis to life.
Yet then, there were the dulcet tones of one Mark ‘Luke Skywalker’ Hamill, whose exceptional vocal chords brought The Joker back for the critically-acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series. But would we ever see Gotham’s greatest grin again in the flesh? We could never find ten things to hate about the man that made this so...
When the Late Heath Ledger stepped into Jack Nicholson’s shoes for The Joker’s 2008 cinematic return, he delivered an Oscar-winning turn the like of which has rarely been seen. The prime antagonist of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Ledger’s calculating yet maniacal Joker was quite simply the young Australian’s finest ever work, and it was a true tragedy that his death preceded the world’s enjoyment of such a breathtaking performance.
Boy wonder Heath had reset the bar to an incredible standard, and The Joker was now once again off the mantlepiece and ready for further live-action treatment. Jared Leto gave a fine version with Suicide Squad, while a very young Cameron Monaghan gave a stunning turn in Gotham. Yet it was only when a certain Gladiator alumnus grabbed the part that we were able to see what it could truly be.
In another Oscar-winning outing for the character, Joaquin Phoenix took Arkham Asylum’s finest to a new place altogether in 2019’s standalone Joker. And the flick was so well received it wouldn’t be standalone for long.
Now, the wait is over, the sequel is here, and it’s time to get our laughing gear around it...
JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX (UK 15/ROI 15A, 138 mins)
Released: October 4 (UK & Ireland)
Joker: Folie à Deux is a spectacle. Joaquin Phoenix returns with another knock-out performance, deftly dancing on the line between sanity and insanity as Arthur Fleck is tormented within the walls of Arkham State Hospital, and Lady Gaga delivers a temptingly unhinged turn as fellow inmate Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel.
But, in truth, it does not feel like much more than a spectacle.
Five years after Todd Phillips’ Joker, the director and his Oscar-winning lead return to pick up Arthur Fleck’s story. Phoenix appears as a subdued Fleck in the dreary Arkham, hounded by the guards – including one played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson – as he is fed medication and dumped in a barebones cell.
He is awaiting trial for the murders he, or his alter-ego Joker, as his defence lawyer argues, committed, and his lawyer’s plan is to plead insanity, claiming he has a split personality to avoid the death penalty.
When Fleck meets Quinzel at a prison singing club, she’s immediately drawn to him and his infamy. They form an instant connection which soon evolves into a folie à deux, a shared delusion that their lives are a musical, breaking intermittently into song and dance numbers. Gaga, as impossibly talented as she is, convincingly tones down her vocal skill to portray an amateur singer in a psychiatric hospital, while Phoenix adds more flair as the film goes on, including in a tapdance number which is genuinely impressive. The musical element to Joker: Folie à Deux adds a fun layer and allows a unique exploration of Arthur and Lee’s mental states, but it is also something of a distraction from the fact that, really, there’s not much going on in the plot.
There are only two main locations in the film - Arkham and the courthouse - and while the set design for the hospital/prison and the drama in court are both notable, the musical interludes (diverting as they may be) artificially extend the flick’s run time, making it feel a touch too long. There is barely any of the dark and grizzly violence or heart-pumping action scenes that fans of the Joker/Batman franchise as a whole love and expect, instead presenting a procedural drama that could have done with a bit more blood, gore and panache. It is disappointing that Gaga’s Lee was not given more character development or independent growth; she has certainly got the acting chops, and perhaps this would have given the plot some much-needed direction.
A DIFFERENT MAN (UK 15/ROI 15A, 112 mins)
Released: October 4 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)
Real beauty flourishes when you fully embrace and cherish your authentic self.
However, if the person staring back in the mirror does not fit your perception of beauty, which has been polished to a lustre of unattainability by advertising, magazines, films, TV and social media, it is easy to allow comparative disappointment to wage a fierce internal battle with self-loathing.
A Different Man is an ambling, New York-set tragicomedy written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, glimpsed through the eyes of a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis named Edward.
The genetic condition has caused benign tumours to grow along his nerves and visibly manifest on his face and neck, drawing unkind and callous glances on the street.
Played with sensitivity by Sebastian Stan wearing prosthetics designed by Oscar-nominated makeup artist Mike Marino, Edward shrinks from the world outside audition rooms and instinctively seeks looks of disgust from strangers to self-sabotage his confidence.
A radical medical procedure opens the possibility of altering his appearance and Schimberg’s picture mines absurdist humour from a decision to move forward with surgery, straying into the realms of blood-spattered horror in a disorienting final act that is perhaps one bitter pill too many to swallow.
Stan’s performance is impeccably calibrated and he employs mannerisms before and after the medical intervention to convey deep-rooted social awkwardness that one character pithily likens to “Woody Allen… when he was young and a little nervous.”
Struggling actor Edward (Stan) subjects himself to experimental facial reconstructive surgery to lessen the visible signs of his neurofibromatosis.
Neighbour and playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) is one of the few people to see past his appearance but she refuses to let sparks of attraction catch fire, cautioning that, “I leave a trail of tragedy in my wake.”
Miraculously, the tumours peel off Edward’s face and reveal a new visage.
He kills off his former self by telling neighbours that Edward committed suicide (which crestfallen Ingrid overhears) and reinvents himself as a successful real estate agent named Guy, who confidently closes deals and has his face plastered on posters on Subway trains.
When Ingrid writes a semi-autobiographical stage work entitled Edward, Guy becomes fixated on playing the part using a prosthetic mask of his old face but a charismatic British actor named Oswald (Adam Pearson) with the condition beats him to the part.
A Different Man is a surreal fable replete with a cameo by Michael Shannon playing himself, which poses timely, conscience-pricking questions about how we look at ourselves and others.
Pearson exudes an effervescence, easy-going charm and lightness absent from other characters, so we are immediately drawn to his debonair Brit abroad.
Schimberg’s script preaches a familiar sermon of self-love, which isn’t always easy to practise. The greatest and most turbulent love affair of any life is with yourself.
DIE BEFORE YOU DIE (UK 15/ROI 15A TBC, 104 mins)
Released: October 4 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)
An endless quest for social media followers could be the death of one influencer in a claustrophobic thriller directed by Dan Pringle.
Adi (Ziad Abaza) has built an online presence by performing larger-than-life pranks but he has run out of ideas to engage his audience.
During a visit to a shisha bar, Adi meets mysterious stranger Lee (Harry Reid), who plants the seed of an audacious plan for content: get buried alive for three days with a mobile phone to document the consensual interment and emerge a new man.
Fellow influencer Maz (Mim Shaikh) is excited about the idea and the pair prepare to be trapped underground with just a PVC pipe providing air into the subterranean chambers.
Languishing six feet under the earth against the wishes of the local Islamic elders, Adi battles dehydration and suffocation on camera in a life-or-death battle for survival.
THE BATTLE FOR LAIKIPIA (UK 12A/ROI 12A TBC, 94 mins)
Released: October 4 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)
Located at the heart of Kenya, Laikipia County is a wildlife conservation haven with sprawling grasslands that sustain the cattle of Indigenous communities and a vibrant ecosystem of wildlife.
The county is also home to white ranchers and conservationists, who settled there during the British colonial era.
Since 2017, directors Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki have been filming in Laikipia to document the effects of climate change.
When three consecutive years of severe drought devastate millions across the Horn of Africa including communities in Laikipia, tensions are inflamed, reigniting a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners.
