No matter you consider “Joker: Folie à Deux” (and also you would possibly’ve observed there are some very robust opinions on the market), you have to admit that director Todd Phillips, alongside together with his co-writer Scott Silver and star duo of Joaquin Phoenix and Woman Gaga, took a wild, dangerous swing with this sequel. The primary “Joker” film, launched in 2019, grossed over $1 billion worldwide and gained two Oscars, together with a Finest Actor win for Phoenix.
Given the character’s enduring reputation throughout comedian books, tv, and movies, it was hardly a shock that the character was robust sufficient to hold a film on his personal — particularly with a heavyweight thespian like Phoenix within the position. However simply how far might they take the character on a standalone journey with out individuals asking, “The place’s Poochie?” I am sorry. “The place’s Batman?” They’d ask the place Batman was.
So it is comprehensible that, what with the acute violence and total extremeness of “Joker,” Phillips would attempt to go more durable with the sequel. It is simply that nobody anticipated that going more durable would compel him to make a jukebox musical/courtroom drama/quasi-erotic thriller. Which brings us to the movie’s graphic intercourse scene between Arthur Fleck a.ok.a. Joker and Harleen “Lee” Quinzel a.ok.a. Harley Quinn. For most individuals, this sequence would possibly’ve been wholly sudden, however those that adopted Phillips’ Instagram within the lead-up to the movie’s launch would possibly’ve sensed it was coming.
Phillips tried to organize us for this bizarre, probably problematic Joker sequence
On Valentine’s Day 2023, Phillips posted a photograph of a wild-eyed Gaga staring straight into the Phoenix’s grinning gaze (as seen above). He is in his Joker make-up, so the sensation is one among insanity — a insanity shared by two, if you’ll. It is an intense image. And it is also taken instantly from the movie’s disturbing intercourse scene.
Why is the scene disturbing? As /Movie’s Invoice Bria adroitly identified, Lee arranges for the conjugal go to and requests that Arthur apply his Joker make-up for his or her encounter. In different phrases, it is a fan seducing their mentally unhinged idol, and manipulating them to seem as they’ve at all times imagined them of their horned-up creativeness. That is type of wacky conduct. Inappropriate even. Perhaps? I do not know.
No matter you consider this second, it is in all probability one of the vital unforgettable sequences in a controversial film that, judging from its D Cinemascore (that is a tick beneath the D+ earned by Francis Ford Coppola’s largely maligned “Megalopolis” final weekend), cheesed off its fanbase one thing fierce. Mixed with its field workplace underperformance, that is doubtless the ultimate go-round for Phoenix’s Joker. However it’s completely the top of the affair for Phillips and the Joker-istas.
