If you think Joker 2: Folie à Deux is bad, it's because you didn't get it

It’s like the end of Lost. When someone tells you that everyone is dead, it’s because they didn’t know the whole story. With ‘Joker 2: Folie à Deux’ it’s the same. You may be disappointed because it’s not what you expected, and you may not like or care what it does, but .... You think it’s bad? The movie did exactly what it set out to do! It wanted to portray many of the viewers, and the worse you say it is, the more you’re giving it a thumbs up.

Because Todd Phillips portrayed you beautifully. Yes, you, dear reader. The role of Harley Quinn is a metaphor for the audience, and you walk out of the theater like Lady Gaga walks out of the courtroom. Exactly the same. Her character rejects this pusillanimous Joker just as you do, and she spends the entire movie waiting for Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime.

In this day and age, we all talk about mental health, but then we see a person like Arthur Fleck getting beaten up, and all we want is dancing, singing, action and gunplay. That’s the critique and the point of the movie, that at the end of the day we are capable of stepping on anyone’s toes for the sake of spectacle and entertainment.

Joaquin Phoenix has not been able to humanize the Joker for you, and yet you are not interested in the reasons that made him a social outcast. Nor do you want to help him or see if he has redemption. You just want to indulge in a violent fantasy where he commits all kinds of murders and a masked man comes to give him the beating of his life. And when Arthur Fleck refuses, all his fans abandon him and you go from idolizing the first movie to hating this sequel. Because just like Harley, or all those new clown-masked loyalists who support him, you didn’t like him for what he was, you liked him for what you thought he was going to be. For the movie you made up in your head.

After the first film, Todd Phillips was alarmed to see that many viewers were buying into the cheap sociological speeches of the first film and, worse, seeing the Joker as a reference. He understood then that his message had not been understood, and this sequel seems to have been conceived to clarify it. It is a social critique with a lot of make-up on top. That’s why it keeps offering you the same resources of the first one (stairs, improvised little dances, identical shots). Because it wants to give you spoonful after spoonful of what you liked so much, until you vomit and loathe it. Until you realize that none of it was made for you to idolize.

With the daring ending we have explained here, the director has settled accounts with the audience. He has put a mirror in front of him and if he reacts with displeasure, it is because of his own reflection. So yes, ‘Joker 2: Folie à Deux’ will be a disappointment and will have a lot of questionable things, but it won’t be a bad movie if it achieves exactly what it set out to do. It’s a movie that will grow on people over time.