MAJOR SPOILERS for Joker: Folie à Deux. The much anticipated Joker sequel is now playing in theaters, but unlike the first movie, it doesn’t look as though fans will help it become another billion-dollar success story. Joker: Folie à Deux has proven to be rather divisive, with the ending in particular coming under fire.
If you’ve seen the film, you know that the sequel finds Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) stabbed to death by a fellow inmate, who promptly carves a Glasgow smile into his own face. It was a shocking end for the character, proving that Fleck was never going to become the Joker we know and love. Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips spoke with Entertainment Weekly to break down the ending and explain why Fleck ultimately rejects his Joker persona.
“He realized that everything is so corrupt, it’s never going to change, and the only way to fix it is to burn it all down,” Phillips said. “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, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore — he wants to be who he is.“
Phillips continued, “The sad thing is, he’s Arthur, and nobody cares about Arthur.” The director added that Lady Gaga’s character never refers to him as Arthur until their final interaction. “[She’s] realizing, I’m on a whole other trip, man, you can’t be what I wanted you to be,” he said.
Given the ending to Joker: Folie à Deux, it makes all the more sense why Phillips has said that he doesn’t intend on returning for Joker 3. “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies,” he said, “but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.“
Our own Chris Bumbray wasn’t a fan of the sequel, feeling that it only exists because the first movie made a boatload of money. “Perhaps Joker was too big of a hit not to get a sequel, but watching Joker: Folie à Deux, you get the distinct feeling that this was an exercise in style for Phillips rather than a sequel that HAD to be made,” Bumbray wrote. “As it is, though, this Joker sequel spins its wheels and winds up being an often dull courtroom movie livened up by occasional flights of fancy into musical numbers. Those sequences are the best in the film, as without them, this would feel like a wholly unnecessary epilogue to what was originally a pretty powerful film.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here, and be sure to let us know what you think of the film as well.