The take on Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux is a radically different animal than the bubbly, wisecracking, murderous, but fun character that Margot Robbie portrayed. In fact, by the time Robbie jumped from James Gunn’s Suicide Squad to Birds of Prey, the character developed something like a moral compass. Gaga plays her in a much darker mode. She’s the ultimate groupie, absolutely besotted with Joker. The actor pulls it off beautifully, convincing us that Lee is completely batshit crazy and more than a little psychotic. At the end of 2024’s brat summer, Gaga delivers the ultimate brat.
This is a dark fantasy jukebox musical with performances including spirituals, Broadway numbers, and American songbook standards. One particularly inspired piece is Joker performing “The Joker” from the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. Lee and Joker even host a demented version of the Sony and Cher variety show. This is fantasy not only for the viewer but for the characters. The title alludes to a shared delusion, but Phillips makes it clear here that it’s not necessarily the same delusion.
“Phoenix takes his performance up a notch…”
Phoenix takes his performance up a notch, careening from downtrodden, sad bastard Fleck to the ultimately confident, maniacal Joker. Gaga slips effortlessly into Lee, and their singing and dancing, clearly being the shared hallucination between them, has the right level of ragged energy to squash the idea that they are actually professional performers. This begs the question of whether there’s anything Gaga can’t do. She can even modulate the quality of her performance when the role calls for a lesser skill level. All of the performances are excellent across the board. The film switches gears constantly. The vibe bumps jarringly from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and back.
A dark, thrilling drama unfolds with these two spinning their own world on top of the grim reality of Gotham and Arkham. Joker: Folie à Deux is a side fantasy, guaranteed to piss off purist fans of the Batman comics. This weird little universe exists outside the main DC stories and even outside the Matt Reeves world of The Batman. The best part of this is that Todd Phillips doesn’t give a f**k about the canon of these characters. As Sinatra says, that’s life. There’s room for all these ideas in this expansive world, and this is a ride worth taking with Arthur Fleck and Lee Quinzel.
"…guaranteed to piss off purist fans..."
