Joker: Folie à Deux
2024 · Directed by Todd Phillips
Original language: English
- drama
- crime
- thriller
The story
While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.
What it’s like
Drab, fluorescent-lit Arkham corridors and a grimy, rain-slick 1980s Gotham give way to courtroom wood tones, dim cell blocks, and stage-lit musical numbers that burst into saturated color against the sepia gloom. Director Todd Phillips leans on long, claustrophobic takes and tight, unsettling close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix's face, while the musical sequences shift into wide, theatrical framing with bright, almost pop-art palettes. The sound design mixes muffled prison clangs and suffocating silence with jukebox-style standards and a fragile, lovesick ballad thread. The vibe is bleak, unsettled and theatrical, a dark romance drifting through delusion, best suited to a late night alone or a viewer who likes a moody, genre-bending double bill of crime drama and musical fantasy. Pacing is slow and heavy, punctuated by sudden stylised bursts, and the emotional register stays melancholy and disturbing, following a fragile, isolated man who clings to a romance he cannot fully trust. Violence is occasional and sharp, with brief outbursts and a prison-abuse thread that feels cruel and uncomfortable; sexual content is limited, and the dread comes more from psychology than gore. It is for people who want a dark, uneasy musical rather than a gentle one.
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