Nothing is really real. Everything’s a lie, if you like. You must know the drill, especially if you spend any time on social media. I’ve often been tempted to wander down the RTÉ Newsroom wearing a t-shirt with ‘RTÉ is the virus’ written on it. Just for the craic.
Musicals are a bit like that. This one particularly – even though it’s not really a musical. Because IRL people don’t go around singing and dancing unless they’re on a stage or about to be committed. Unless your name is Arthur Fleck but you’re better known as Joker.
Taking up two years after the goings-on in Joker, this sequel is radically different from its predecessor in its execution. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix’s Travis Bickle/Rupert Pupkin vibe remains. But the song and sporadic dance element here is a pretty brave move and must be a severe head-wreck for the average DC anorak.
Y’know. They’re not taking Joker seriously.
Me? I grew up with both Batman and Broadway in the house. By the age of seven I knew every Gotham villain as well as I knew The Lonely Goatherd. I consider it a well-rounded, valuable education.
There’s an early musical reference in Joker: Folie à Deux. When Fleck was being led across a yard in the rain, an overhead shot turned the black police brollies into vivid coloured ones, reminiscent of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
What would Batman creators Bob Kane or Bill Finger think? We’re being led into a romantic story just as tragic as that French classic.
Anyway, the movie revolves around Fleck’s time in jail, meeting up with and falling for Lady Gaga’s manipulative Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn, and going to court for the murders he committed in the first flick.
Lady Gaga’s presence adds a ton of tonsil to the tunes, which are a vehicle for getting inside the head of Arthur Fleck/Joker. It’s an old story: are Fleck and Joker the same, or two separate identities? And why is the garishly-dressed psychopath the one people admire?
What is reality?
The film is effortlessly claustrophobic, dreamily undramatic and all the better for it. You’re either in Fleck’s head, or watching him incarcerated or in court. As Travis Bickle might put it: there’s no excape.
Life? It’s a jail sentence, baby. And we’re all prisoners. Doomed and lost inside our own heads.