I could tell fairly early on that Joker: Folie à Deux was not for me. The cinematic misuse of dissociative identity disorder — Arthur Fleck’s (Joaquin Phoenix) ostensible legal defense for his actions in the first film — got old decades ago after a string of thrillers like Fight Club beat the trope into the ground. But director and co-writer Todd Phillips seems endlessly fascinated by the idea of a killer with a “fractured” mind, assuming the audience will sit through 138 minutes of meandering rumination on that hypothesis. Is Fleck’s “Joker” persona a defensive shell formed in response to childhood trauma or is it a self-aggrandizing performance covering over a thirst for violence? The question is nowhere near as interesting as Joker 2 wants it to be.
I tried to assuage myself around the ten-minute mark that Lady Gaga could breathe some life into this whole affair. A global pop superstar with proven acting talent and the same set of pipes that brought us “Shallow” might provide a much-needed contrast to Phoenix’s sadly leaden screen presence. But it quickly became apparent that Phillips had either relegated Gaga to the sidelines, or largely left her out of the final cut. Apart from a handful of songs, Gaga spends most of the movie in the literal background. I was baffled, dismayed, and utterly bereft in that order — and judging from the scathing critic and audience reactions, I was not alone. Will anyone ever use Lady Gaga correctly — or is she destined to forever play second fiddle to screen partners who are gunning for Oscars?
To process it all, I asked Them executive editor Fran Tirado and staff writer James Factora to join me for a discussion of the film. Come on, let’s get (un)happy. — Samantha Allen
Samantha Allen: Well, I had a truly terrible time. How did you both fare?
James Factora: It’s not as if I was expecting this to be a good movie, but I was at least hoping it would be bad in a fun way. A Joker and Harley Quinn musical starring Lady Gaga? How could that not be at least a little fun? And yet… it was not at least a little fun. It was truly one of the most harrowing viewing experiences I’ve ever had. That sinking feeling started with Arthur randomly kissing that twink, and it only went downhill from there.
Fran Tirado: Without exaggeration, it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. And I say that as someone who stans Gaga, loves a Batman joint, and was genuinely excited about the initial announcement of this film ahead of its premiere. But as Samantha mentioned, the film is obsessed with all the wrong elements of Joker’s story, and didn’t really seem interested in Harley Quinn at all. The film — a literal musical — had virtually no entertainment value.
S.A.: Perhaps most galling to me was that it seemed terrified to be a musical? In order for the “songs” to seem more realistic, most of the numbers started out with Gaga and Phoenix in this breathy, faux-naturalistic, half-talking register. I think I had fun for about 15 seconds when Gaga really got to let loose, but otherwise Joker 2 really did secure one of the world’s most famous voices and forced her to basically hum. Did the “music” redeem this at all for either of you?
J.F.: I thought to myself multiple times while watching that the movie kind of felt like Todd Phillips had only recently become familiar with the concept of “musicals,” and directed accordingly. I felt insulted as a viewer on so many levels. Like, my blood pressure is rising just thinking about the whisper singing. And yet, even despite the fact that her actual talents were once again underutilized, it felt impossible to me to see Harley as anything but Lady Gaga in this movie.
F.T.: The thing is that truly no one asked to hear Joaquin Phoenix sing. No one! The one vocal moment that stood out to me was one of the seven thousand dream sequences where Gaga is belting on a stage with Joker and playing two pianos at once. But following suit with Mean Girls, Wonka, so many other musicals that are scared to be musicals, it’s not surprising to me that the actors were all briefed to not promote the movie as one. At Venice, Gaga insisted that FàD was not a musical, then said “The music is a way to give the characters a way to express themselves because the dialogue wasn't enough,” which is quite exactly the definition of a musical. And yet, even as a musical, it totally failed. The songs almost never advanced plot, and instead over-indulged in vacuous character study. The repetitiveness depleted the music of any emotional value.
S.A.: Right? The songs didn’t offer any real insight, and they didn’t drive the narrative, either. Nor did the courtroom scenes have any momentum for that matter! This movie just kind of happened, and kept happening for a long time, and then it was over. By the end, after a couple of truly atrocious spoiler-heavy plot points I can’t even bring myself to type, I was almost incandescent with anger that Gaga has been acting for six years now — and is clearly one of those actual multi-hyphenates whose talents translate to a new medium — and this is what they give her? This?!
J.F.: I have to share that in anticipation of this discussion, I did watch both Joker (2019) and A Star is Born for the first time this past week. (Yes, it has been a psychically draining week overall, and yes, I promise I’m not a fake Little Monster. I watched House of Gucci in theaters before anyone comes for me.)
Like you said, Samantha, Gaga has proven that she can act. There was very little about A Star is Born that I enjoyed, but her performance was one of those factors; same with Gucci. Not that I had super high hopes that this was going to be her magnum opus or anything, but again, I felt insulted, and I feel like she probably did too, judging from her viral reaction to the final cut of the movie that Fran shared with us. Especially since she would kill in an actual courtroom drama.
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F.T.: This brings us to the meat of our discussion, honestly, which is a gross misuse of Gaga’s acting prowess in what I’d describe as a trilogy of films where a female character that a Hollywood executive might describe as “spunky” or “feisty” somehow loses all that dimensionality by the second act of the movie after being pulled into the orbit of a narcissist who takes her love for granted, fails to see her value, and drives her obsession to the point of self-destruction. It feels formulaic at this point.
S.A.: I want to delicately ask, given that Gaga seems to genuinely really enjoy press tours with Bradley Cooper (“a hundred people in the room…”), Gucci screen partner Adam Driver, and now Phoenix, whether we think she actively wants and pursues this exact kind of role — or whether it’s reflective of how executives, filmmakers, and more established actors want to use a female pop star in her late 30s? If she’s having fun, should we just be happy for her? Or is it OK to want better?
J.F.: I kind of feel like she wants better too; she is, at her core, a theater kid. Maybe it’s just the 13-year-old Little Monster in me, but I really genuinely believe that she could win an acting Oscar if Hollywood executives would simply cast her in something where she gets to shine. Maybe she needs to retool her strategy and go for some kind of bonkers stage play before getting her Oscar-worthy role. I need to see her in something as unhinged as Sarah Snook’s one-woman Dorian Gray.
F.T.: She really is perhaps the world’s most powerful theater kid, and as a recovering theater kid myself, I do want better for her. I’ll also say that I thought the first act of both A Star Is Born and House of Gucci scored an A+, and that Gaga gives Academy-worthy performances in both those movies — cinema! But Joker seems to make the mistakes of those films tenfold, and the first act was virtually unwatchable to me.
In my opinion, the way this trilogy fails Gaga is more a consequence of the industry’s repeated history of taking stars-turned-actresses and putting them in thin leading roles, and not so much reflective of poor judgment by Gaga herself. A Star Is Born kind of did that to Barbra Streisand, if not also Judy Garland. House of Gucci has many parallels with Cher’s Oscar-winning performance in Moonstruck. But Cher took a silly script and made it hers as the true lead of the film — nobody was talking about Nic Cage’s performance! Gaga, perhaps strategically, has been put into three films that already had prestige Oscar-facing male actors attached to them, which elevates her stardom, but also dims her light in each.
S.A.: Ugh, Moonstruck is such a great comparison. We need Gaga’s version of the opera date. I have my fingers crossed that whatever she does next is a “top billing and by far the most screen time” situation in contrast to her last three big roles. She’s got nothing upcoming on IMDb so far and I hope the critical panning of FàD doesn’t have any knock-on effects for her film career because its awfulness is truly not her fault. But I suppose we’ll see.
Thanks to this discussion with you both, I’m already feeling a little bit better about having spent three hours on a Thursday night seeing this in a theater. I’d love to conclude on a personal note: How are you both finding peace after what we collectively endured?
F.T.: I’ll be listening to Gaga’s rendition of “Happy Mistake” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, a very average original song she wrote for the very average Harlequin, but that she performs at a fucking 11. They can take Gaga for granted, but her talent will always be undeniable.
J.F.: For the rest of the night after I left the theater, my friends and I could not stop saying “that’s life” in response to every minor inconvenience imaginable (the train being delayed, the restaurant being out of Sprite, etc.). I did in fact turn on Lady Gaga’s version of “That’s Life” when we got this Google Doc started. I’m half-convinced that Gaga will appear on my ceiling in the middle of the night whisper-singing “That’s Life.” I don’t know that this counts as “finding peace,” but it’s definitely finding… something.
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