This blog is not one to shy from controversy, so yours portly is going to come out and say it:  2024’s Joker: Folie à Deux is an excellent film.

Yes, yes—critics and audiences have panned it.  That is an indication that it’s not just the smarmy critics panning a flick that audiences love, but that it’s actually an unenjoyable slog.  Indeed, much of the criticism I’ve read or watched of the film describes it as bleak and hopeless.

Having seen Joker 2 (as I will call it for the rest of the review so I don’t have to type out that ridiculous title), I can say it’s good because it’s bleak and hopeless.  Indeed, that is the entire point.

The film picks up after the events of Joker (2019), a film that seemed to capture the troubled Zeitgeist of the time, when disruptive wokeness coupled with the legitimate complaints of a forgotten people boiled to a fever pitch.  Even with Trump in office, there was a sense of social isolation and nihilism percolating, especially in online and the few remaining male-dominated spaces.  That film was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment:  a flick about a version of the infamous Batman villain that didn’t feature the Caped Crusader at all, but instead focused on the series of systemic and personal failures and misunderstandings that culminated in the creation of Gotham’s deranged Clown Prince.

Now we see Joker—Arthur Fleck—behind bars in Arkham Prison, a glum version of his former self (or selves, as his defense attorney is seeking an insanity defense to spare Arthur the chair after the five murders he committed in the first film).  The lethal spark of the Joker is gone, and Arthur lives a life of brutal routine, punctuated by teasing from the guards, who frequently ask him, “Got a joke for us today, Arthur?”

But Fleck’s life is no laughing matter.  District attorney Harvey Dent is seeking the death penalty.  Fleck’s attorney tries everything she can to make her client seem sympathetic and misunderstood, but Fleck increasingly escapes into a fantasy world of overwrought musical numbers (and may even perform a song during a heated televised interview).

Fleck’s spark is reignited, however, when he meets Harley Quinn, played here by Lady Gaga.  The casting was brilliant—Lady Gaga is one of those women who should be attractive (either in spite or because of her massive schnoz), but somehow has never come across that way.  That kind of works here, because she is attractive in the way that troubled, institutionalized babes are.  She looks rough, and it’s the kind of rough Arthur thinks he needs in his life.

A quick aside:  I have never liked the character Harley Quinn, in part because it was stylish for a time for women to dress as her for Halloween and comic book conventions.  Those costumes ultimately devolved into ugly women with big boobs dressed as slutty clowns.  What I particularly objected to, however, was that these women seemed to glorify Harley Quinn, whose character is an abused partner in a codependent relationship built upon a mutual love of homicide, crime, and random acts of violence.  In other words, the adoration of Harley Quinn always struck me as the Platonic Ideal of what modern women secretly desire:  rough, domineering lovers who treat them like dirt.  But I also think it was just a way for unattractive women to cover their blemishes in pancake makeup with their gozangas hanging out.

But I digress.  This Harley Quinn is totally different.  She’s unhinged, yes, but she’s crafty.  She reignites the Joker inside of Arthur Fleck, and mayhem ensues.

What I found so poignant about the flick—and why its bleak ending is so appropriate—is that no one really cares about Arthur Fleck (except perhaps his attorney); all they want is the Joker.  When Fleck renounces the Joker side of himself, he loses his legions of supporters, as well as the woman he loves.  He just becomes another nobody in the system, chewed up and spit out.

Granted, that “nobody in the system” is a homicidal man.  We shouldn’t have too much sympathy for Fleck.  But this second film is a fitting completion of the story from the first film.  It is the logical outcome for this character.  It’s bleak—but it should be.