Joker: Folie a Deux is set to be this year's most memorably twisted comic book movie. Joaquin Phoenix reprises his Oscar-winning role as clown turned political emblem Arthur Fleck who is now on trial for instigating a full-bore Gotham riot, which caused the city's underclass to violently rise up.
Now an inmate at the notorious Arkham Asylum, Arthur meets Harlene Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who promptly turns his life upside down. The movie, directed by Todd Phillips, looks stylistically bold and emotionally daring, as the new trailer makes clear.
It's also apparent that Joker: Folie a Deux is making more than a few tweaks to the classic Joker/Harley Quinn relationship. Here's why.
Harley is already an inmate at Arkham Asylum when she meets Arthur Fleck
In the DC comics, psychiatrist Harlene Quinzel finds her head turned by the Joker's charismatic blend of narcissistic rage and sadistic humour, and later becomes his paramour. In Joker: Folie a Deux, Harlene is already incarcerated at Arkham when she first spots a handcuffed Arthur being walked down a corridor.
This changes things and puts the characters on a level pegging from the start: both are damaged souls who are in the process of being punished by the authorities. No doubt this spurs them on toward a bad romance.
They bond over a shared love of music
One doesn't cast Lady Gaga without capitalising on her musical chops. Her Harlene appears to be a part of an Arkham community choir (there's also a shot of her in an apartment with sheet music on a piano) and this no doubt underlines the sense of Joker: Folie a Deux being a jukebox musical.
She appears to inspire Arthur's emergent singing chops and at the end of the trailer, she instigates a call-and-response reaction to the classic show tune 'Get Happy', which has been covered by the likes of Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald.
She becomes increasingly infatuated with him when he's on trial for his crimes
The sequencing of the trailer implies that Harlene is released from Arkham around the same time Arthur is put on trial for the crimes seen in the previous film. She's so taken with Arthur and his symbolic clown-like qualities that she breaks a store window and steals a television on which he's being broadcast.
She carries her love for him into court
Again we may be reaching here but having achieved her freedom, Harlene then styles herself as Arthur, complete with morbid clown make-up. There's a shot where she reaches the Gotham courthouse steps and the press seems surprised and fascinated at her arrival: this may well be the moment that she announces their nascent love affair to the public, which portends terrible and violent things to come. (This is further underlined by a line toward the end of the trailer: "Let's give the people what they want.")
The whole Joker/Harley relationship could be imagined
Can we be sure that the various song and dance numbers in the trailer are real? There are multiple scenes of Arthur and Harlene nee Harley pirouetting to the likes of 'What the World Needs Now', and the trailer culminates in a reveal of their glitzy variety show. However, this may be a figurative expression of their shared narcissism, a projection of how they wish to be seen.
It would be another interesting subversion of the graphic novels, substituting the original Arthur/Harley relationship for an extended metaphorical depiction of toxic romance.
Joker: Folie a Deux is released on October 4th. Click the link below to discover the full list of 2024's upcoming comic book movies.
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