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Joker: Folie à Deux review: the short verdict
This is an anti-escalation sequel. Arthur Fleck is institutionalized at Arkham and awaiting trial, not unleashed into a larger comic-book spectacle. Musical numbers interrupt the prison and courtroom drama rather than consistently propelling it forward. That structure can read as a pointed response to audiences who turned the first film’s violent antihero into an icon. It can also feel like a refusal to deliver the pleasures promised by its stars and genres.
The distinction matters: the film’s frustration is visible on screen; a deliberate attempt to insult fans is not established. The better question is whether its restraint builds a compelling reckoning with Arthur’s public image. At times, Phoenix and Gaga give the relationship an unpredictable charge. Across the whole, though, the story’s limited movement makes the provocation harder to distinguish from inertia.
What is the story, and what kind of sequel is it?
Warner Bros. describes Arthur as institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker and struggling with his dual identity. There he encounters Lee Quinzel. Joaquin Phoenix returns as Arthur, Lady Gaga plays Lee, and Todd Phillips directed and co-wrote the film with Scott Silver. Gaga also served as music consultant. Warner Bros.’ official film site presents the premise and credits.
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The change of setting shifts the sequel’s center of gravity. The first film’s social unrest and transformation into a violent public figure give way to confinement, courtroom proceedings and the question of how Arthur relates to the Joker persona. Rather than building toward a larger DC-style eruption, the sequel keeps returning to the consequences of that transformation—and to the audience Arthur has acquired.
That redirection is the strongest case for reading the film as a deliberate challenge to expectations. It asks viewers to watch a figure they may have treated as an icon face the limits and costs of that identity. But a refusal to escalate is not automatically a successful critique. The film still needs dramatic movement and emotional stakes to make its refusal feel earned.
Do the songs reveal Arthur and Lee—or stall the story?
Yes, Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical: the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) classifies it as a crime, drama and musical. But classification does not settle whether the music works as musical storytelling. The key test is whether a number changes what we understand about Arthur and Lee, or alters their relationship—or instead suspends a scene that needs to advance.
Rank #2
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The film’s musical passages are closely tied to fantasy, performance and the identities its characters inhabit. That connection gives them a potential dramatic purpose: song can make visible the distance between private feeling and public persona. Yet the numbers can also leave the surrounding prison and courtroom story feeling paused. The balance is the movie’s central risk. If the songs feel like another layer of Arthur’s self-invention, the form sharpens the character study; if they feel like delay, it sharpens the sense of a story standing still.
Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus captures both sides: “Joaquin Phoenix’s eponymous Joker takes the stand in a sequel that dances around while the story remains still, although Lady Gaga’s wildcard energy gives Folie á Deux some verve.” Individual audience comments shown on the site include “way too much singing,” but those comments are examples of reader wording, not a representative audience survey. Rotten Tomatoes’ film page provides the consensus and displayed audience comments.
Do Phoenix and Gaga make the relationship compelling?
Phoenix’s performance is built around the tension between Arthur and the Joker identity: the public figure is a role that can command attention, while the man facing trial is confined by the consequences. That distinction gives the courtroom material its most useful dramatic question: is Arthur claiming, resisting or performing the identity that made him famous?
Rank #3
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Gaga brings Lee a wildcard energy that unsettles the film’s enclosed, procedural rhythm. Her presence makes the relationship feel less like a conventional romance than a volatile meeting of fantasy and celebrity. Their connection helps explain why Arthur might cling to the Joker image even when the trial threatens to define him in terms he cannot control.
The Associated Press’s Jake Coyle found both performers watchable while criticizing the film’s energy. That tension describes the experience well: strong screen presence can animate an exchange without making the larger narrative feel as if it is moving. The performances are a reason to stay with the film, not a guarantee that its structure will satisfy.
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As a description of the film’s effect, the phrase has a case. A viewer expecting a triumphant Joker escalation gets a courtroom reckoning; someone drawn by Gaga may find her energy filtered through a deliberately confined drama; a musical fan may find that the songs do not consistently provide the forward motion associated with the form. The film withholds several obvious payoffs at once.
Rank #4
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But the phrase should not be mistaken for a claim about Phillips’s intention. Contemporary critics disagreed about what the refusal means. In Rotten Tomatoes’ first-review roundup, one critic interpreted the sequel as a rejection likely to drive away part of the fan base, while another regarded it as overly cautious. The roundup makes clear that the same retreat from expected escalation can look transgressive to one critic and timid to another.
That disagreement points to the film’s unresolved trade-off. It wants to complicate the spectacle around Arthur, but it relies on a spectacle-conscious audience to make that complication meaningful. The result is more interesting as a refusal than as a sustained drama: its choices provoke debate about what a Joker sequel owes its viewers, even when they do not make every scene compelling.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Runtime, content guidance and availability
The BBFC lists an approximate runtime of 138 minutes. Its UK classification guidance identifies strong violence and language, sex, discrimination, sexual threat, suicide and self-harm references, smoking, and flashing images; the BBFC notes that the flashing images may affect viewers susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy. These are UK-specific classification details, not a US rating.
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Warner Bros. announced a US debut on Max for December 13, 2024. That is a historical launch date, not confirmation of current availability in every region. The BBFC’s UK home-entertainment listing covers physical media and VOD/streaming. Check the service and format currently available in your location before choosing where to watch. Warner Bros. Discovery’s announcement documents the US streaming debut.
Final assessment
Joker: Folie à Deux is a provocative sequel whose strongest idea is to turn away from the Joker spectacle audiences might demand and examine the man, the persona and the trial instead. Phoenix and Gaga bring the relationship flashes of life, and the musical form fits a story about performance and identity. But the same choices that make the film resistant to easy fan service also leave it dramatically static. Calling it a middle finger captures the frustration; calling that frustration a fully successful critique would overstate the case.
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