From Wikipedia: Folie à deux (French for ‘madness of two’), also called shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are “transmitted” from one individual to another.
Folie à deux is also the subtitle of one of the most anticipated movies in 2024: The Joker 2. Released exactly five years after Joaquin Phoenix’ first portrayal of Arthur Fleck, we are back with Les Mis of Gotham City, dem Abschaum der Gesellschaft. Our protagonist is doing time in prison and awaiting his trial for multiple murder. His daily grind is sad, violent, lifeless, hopeless, corrupt and plain ugly. However, along comes Lady Gaga aka Lee Quinzel, and with her a bad romance (raw-raw-oh-lala). Through song and just dance, they bring colour into an otherwise dull and grey reality. She becomes the Bonnie to his Clyde, the one who appreciates and loves the jo-jo-jo-jo-joker face and gives him something to hope for. Together they slay and as the trial progresses, more and more paparazzi take interest in the unusual couple. The reviews are very mixed and mostly negative. People are disappointed, and I get it. Everything the first movie built up to be – is let down. With Joker, they did something unexpected, brilliant. They made a movie that is nothing like you’d expect a comic book adaption to be and it is almost impossible to align it within the universe of the franchise. The second movie trumps that [btw, I’m petitioning to use that verb and seperate it from that clown ass figure (a real villain in the real world) its unfortunately synonymic with]: neither franchise nor continuation of the origin or rise of The Joker, as it seemingly inevitably had to be. If you expect either, you WILL be disappointed. So yeah, I get it. However, the movie is a piece of art. The cinematography is stunning, to say the least, and even though it wouldn’t have hurt to have a little less singing, it is a wonderfully artistic dive further down into Arthur Fleck’s ill mind, his realities, him as a human being with flaws, and his search for identity as Arthur, as Joker, denn wer bin ich eigentlich und wenn ja, wie viele? It plays with the audience’s expectations as much as with the in-movie Joker-fans alike (very meta). It is by no means a plot-driven story. It is an epilogue, an afterthought of Joker, and as such it should be seen. Oh, and the ending kills all the excited anticipation the first movie left us with. Brutal. Brilliant. I loved it. And I understand everyone who didn’t.
PS: Bonus points for all Lady Gaga songs you find in this review!