Featuring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, Joker: Folie à Deux, the musical sequel to the Oscar-winning origin myth for Batman’s nemesis, has amassed flak for its controversial ending. By the time the sequel concludes, we learn that Joker’s origin story wasn’t actually Joker’s origin story.
The latest DC follow-up set two years after Arthur Fleck aka Joker murders Murray Franklin on live TV, shows him locked up in a psychiatric asylum, awaiting his trial. Joker becomes a media sensation, an object of obsession by fans especially Harleen “Lee” Quinzel aka Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn. Along with their toxic romance and shared insanity also begins Gotham’s “Trial of the Century” where the prosecutor and the defense attorney make arguments if Arthur suffers from a split-personality disorder, whether he is innocent or guilty, and whether he needs medical assistance or a death penalty.
In a shocking twist, Arthur rejects his wild Joker persona during the trial and is charged guilty. Moreover, he is slain by a fellow psychotic inmate in the climax. As Arthur’s lifeless body takes the center frame, in the blurring background, his maniac killer cuts his face in a smile-like horrific design, mirroring the scar of Heath Ledger’s Joker in the 2012 hit The Dark Knight.
Joker: Folie à Deux’s conclusion indicates Arthur’s murderer later takes on the anti-hero and criminal persona of Joker, thereby becoming the ultimate Clown Prince of Crimes of Gotham City in the Batman lore of the DC Universe.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Todd Phillips explained why Arthur doesn’t accept his Joker personality and why he feels even burning down Gotham wouldn’t lead to any change. The decision is evoked from the scene when he watches a fellow inmate and one of his passionate supporters get shot in cold blood inside the Arkham asylum.
“When those guards kill that kid in the [hospital] he realizes that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him,” said Todd Phillips. The director added, “The sad thing is, he’s Arthur, and nobody cares about Arthur.”
Todd Phillips also confirmed defense attorney Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face, another enemy of DC’s caped crusader. The moment is cemented by the explosion that destroys the courthouse wall before Arthur’s sentencing. Many are injured, some killed, and among the harmed is Dent, who suffers a severe burn on one side of his face, mirroring Two-Face’s scar in the DC universe. “(We’re) trying to put a realistic answer to why certain things happen. Why does he have (that face),” said Phillips. He added, “All we’re doing is saying, let’s use this lore as a foundation, but run it through a realistic lens, or at least a different lens than it’s been run through in other things, to make it our own.”
Todd Phillips also defended his creation noting that the creative choices were made, “not out of disrespect to the original material, not out of rejecting some other person’s idea. It’s just out of, how do we make this our own.”
Joker: Folie à Deux hit theatres on October 2.
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