Joker: Folie à Deux

A lot has already been said about this movie, and most of it was written almost a year ago, so I’ll keep this brief. After watching Joker: Folie à Deux, a single question rattled around in my head over and over and over again:

Who enjoyed making this movie?

I’ve made movies. Features, shorts, documentaries—you name it. You know what’s neat about making movies? It’s fun!

That doesn’t mean the subject matter has to be “fun” for the making of the movie to be enjoyable, rewarding, and, yes, fun. Some of the most “fun” I’ve ever had was when we were filming some seriously heavy shit. Shit that made people cry. Not the audience cry—like, the people who were hanging up the lights. Everyone on set had read the script, knew the story, and when they saw these emotional scenes in front of them, they were so invested—cared so much about the movie they were making—that they started crying.

As a filmmaker, can you ask for anything better than that? There’s nothing more fun in the world!

I once saw the film Nothing Bad Can Happen at a festival, and it was one of the single most miserable experiences of my life. I hated almost every second of that movie. But then it ended—faded to black—and a title card faded in that read:

“This movie was based on a true story.”

In a split second, I understood the movie. They were capturing one of the worst scenarios a human being can possibly go through short of the Holocaust, and they did it in the most hyper-realistic way possible. Good fucking lord, I wouldn’t force my worst enemy to watch that goddamn film, but I can’t tell you how much I respect the people who made it. I have no doubt every person involved would tell you making that film was one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives.

I promise you there isn’t a person alive who would say that about working on Joker: Folie à Deux. As countless others have pointed out, it’s a film that truly despises the very audience it’s aiming f–wait… is it aiming for an audience if it hates that audience?

Let me point out, despite my pretty questionable tastes, I am not a “Joker bro.” I thought Joker was a gorgeous piece of art assembled by master-craftsman technicians. Sure, The Hangover Part II, The Hangover Part III, and Due Date were truly forgettable, with plenty of cringey moments that aged terribly, but they’re ten times more gorgeous than they ever deserve to be. People love calling Michael Bay the “shitty filmmaker who actually makes gorgeous shitty movies,” but Todd Phillips is super underrated in that league.

So when he tackled a “dark and gritty” version of the Joker with one of the greatest living actors and, at least seemingly, a clear “Early Scorsese in Gotham” vibe, I wasn’t surprised when the movie turned out pretty freaking good.

When Folie à Deux was announced, with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and the big bomb that it would be a musical, I thought the inspiration train was still chugging along. The vibe might shift from Scorsese to Fred Astaire, but that sounded fucking awesome!

It wasn’t awesome.

Because that’s not what Joker: Folie à Deux is. I don’t even know what it is. It’s just two miserable hours of dungeon prison life where every morning we see the prisoners empty their chamber pots before getting beaten and sexually assaulted for the day.

Moments after “Joker” weeps into the camera—“There is no Joker… only me…”—the most hamfisted “I hope all you comic fanbois are throwing your drinks at the screen!” message ever, a bomb explodes and we see District Attorney Harvey Dent with half his face blown off.

I thought you hated comic book movies?

So again, I ask: Who enjoyed making this movie?

Was it Todd Phillips, who spent months—if not years—working on something everyone, including himself, will truly despise for the rest of their lives? Something that completely undermines the greatest achievement of his career? Was it Joaquin Phoenix, who went full-on The Machinist and got beaten and assaulted daily? Has Brendan Gleeson always wanted to play a rapey prison guard in a comic book sequel?

I truly don’t understand it.

When Trump got elected in 2016, I was mad. I drew a bunch of raging political art for a few days. But then, after looking at it, I thought: “I don’t like looking at these people. I don’t like this shit.” So I put it away and moved on.

After they finished this miserable script, why didn’t anyone say: “Alright, that’s enough…”

Or, like, on day 47 of filming the $200 million budget mega-tentpole film, why didn’t anyone say: “Alright, that’s enough…”

Or during week five of post-production, when they got the first passes of the audio mix and had to watch the first three reels for the 22nd time, why didn’t anyone say: “Alright, that’s enough…”

Again, when you’re making Nothing Bad Can Happen, Schindler’s List, Requiem for a Dream, or even The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence), at the end of every single day, everyone knows why they’re making that movie. Usually, in some way, the process is rewarding.

Who enjoyed making Joker: Folie à Deux?