Is anyone out there laughing? It seems not, considering the lackluster reception to Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to his $1 billion hit Joker (2019), which was nominated for 11 Oscars and won Best Actor and Best Original Score.
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| Joker Folie A Deux, Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, 2024. Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection |
A follow-up with Phoenix reprising his role as Joker/Arthur Fleck, and Lady Gaga joining as Harley Quinn, appeared to be one of Hollywood’s safest bets this year, despite Joker not laying the groundwork for a sequel.
Yet, the disappointment felt by fans of the first film goes beyond dissatisfaction; many feel betrayed. The sequel has certain elements that are subjective: it can feel slow at times, the soundtrack leans heavily on mid-20th century tunes with frequent reprises, and Phillips seems less invested in the musical aspects of the film, unexpectedly focusing more on 70s variety show aesthetics.
However, much of the frustration stems from the film’s conclusion.
There’s no definitive right or wrong way to interpret the film or its ending. What I offer here is not a defense of Joker: Folie à Deux, but a viewpoint through which to assess the film, regardless of your take. Through this lens, we can also understand the ending, which I personally think is the film’s best moment. Cue the silence. Is this mic on?
In the film’s final scenes, Arthur Fleck renounces his Joker persona in court, acknowledging that he was never a symbol, just a man who knowingly acted out. He was a nobody who wanted to be somebody, to feel loved. His admission sparks outrage among his followers, and Lee turns her back on him, ending their relationship.
She was enamored with Joker, not Fleck. Back at Arkham, Fleck sits in silence, no longer laughing, reminiscing about the love he had and lost. Just then, a guard, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), informs him of a visitor and escorts him to the reception area.
Along the way, Fleck is stopped by a fellow inmate, who, throughout the film, has silently observed Fleck and the reactions he draws from other inmates and the public during his televised trial. The inmate tells Fleck a joke, delivering the same punchline Joker gave to Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) in the first film: “You get what you f**king deserve.”
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| Warner Bros. Pictures |
The inmate then stabs Fleck multiple times in the stomach. As Fleck bleeds out on the floor, the inmate, blurred in the background, experiments with different laughs before carving a Glasgow smile into his face. He finally lands on the perfect laugh—deep, cold, and gurgling with blood—just as Arthur Fleck dies. A Joker dies, and the Joker is born.
To understand the feeling of betrayal some fans have experienced, we need to revisit the first film. After its release, I noted that Joker had a tenuous relationship with its comic book roots. While Phillips distanced the film from the genre, branding it as a serious character study in the vein of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982), the film undeniably owes much to The Killing Joke and other Joker narratives across various media.
If it weren’t for its ties to the comic book world, audiences wouldn’t have latched onto it as they did with Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight (2008) or Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989).
Prior to Joker’s release, concerns arose about potential violence on opening night, reminiscent of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. Though no violence occurred, the idea of Joker pandering to incels gained traction in the media. Some now see Joker: Folie à Deux as Phillips’ way of flipping the middle finger to both that crowd and comic book purists.
Personally, I don’t engage with incel circles online—definitely not my scene. But the idea of Joker being an incel manifesto seems exaggerated. A movie supported by incels wouldn’t gross $1 billion and land Oscar nominations.
Additionally, the negative reviews of Joker: Folie à Deux don’t stem from this narrative. Instead, many people saw Arthur Fleck as a hero—a man who stood against the elite and exposed broken welfare systems.
Critics at the time accused the film of glorifying violence and positioning Joker as triumphant—a broken man made whole by dismantling the system. But following a villainous protagonist doesn’t necessarily encourage audiences to adopt that character’s moral framework.
Because Fleck was portrayed as mentally ill and abused, some viewers felt the film blurred the line between villain and victim, creating a slippery slope. Around the same time, debates arose about Batman’s use of wealth to fight Gotham’s mentally ill, rather than addressing the city’s systemic problems. However, the fictional world of Batman operates under different rules than our own.
Arthur Fleck’s grievances are mostly selfish. While he claims to champion the downtrodden, he does little to help them. It’s not unlike a filmmaker criticizing power structures while profiting from the very system they critique.
At the end of Joker, Fleck, now institutionalized, begins to laugh. When asked what’s funny, he replies, “You wouldn’t get it.” The people of Gotham didn’t get it, nor did some of the audience. So, what’s the punchline? Joker was the setup, and Joker: Folie à Deux is the punchline.
The sequel opens with an animated short in the style of old Looney Tunes cartoons, where Joker battles his shadow, which eventually outshines him, frames him for murder, and leaves Fleck broken. This chilling cartoon encapsulates the entire movie.
When we meet Fleck again, he’s a shell of a man, awaiting trial for the five murders he committed in the previous film. He’s subdued, heavily medicated, and hasn’t cracked a joke in months. But his world shifts when he meets Lee Quinzel, an inmate from a lower-security ward.
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| Joker Folie A Deux Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection |
She inspires Fleck to embrace Joker again, recounting her own troubled upbringing that mirrors his. Meanwhile, Fleck’s lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), tries to craft a defense, arguing that Joker was a separate persona who committed the murders while Fleck blacked out. It’s a solid argument, but untrue—just like Lee’s fabricated backstory.
The film delves into parasocial relationships, exploring how people insert themselves into crime narratives to gain significance. Gaga’s portrayal of Lee, a manipulative woman from a wealthy family who checks into Arkham just to meet Joker, highlights this phenomenon.
Unlike the comic version of Harley Quinn, who initially sought to treat the Joker, Lee uses Fleck for her own gain, molding him into Joker once more through deceit and manipulation.
Lee’s character could be seen as a cunning destroyer of men, feeding into misogynistic narratives. But this only holds if Joker is framed as a hero, rather than the narcissistic killer he is.
In the end, Joker: Folie à Deux presents a narrative where both the rich and the poor manipulate Fleck, and many characters perform for the camera—whether in interviews, trials, or musical numbers. Lee and other Joker fans are merely shadows, waiting for the real thing. But Fleck isn’t it.
In a featurette for Joker, Phillips remarks, “There are many ways to look at the movie. [Arthur Fleck] might not be Joker.” This idea of Joker’s origin being “multiple choice” is borrowed from The Killing Joke and used by various creators over the years. One major critique of the first film was that Arthur Fleck didn’t fully embody the Joker from the comics, and it’s likely he never will.
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