On Oct. 4 , “Joker: Folie a Deux” was released to the public to watch in theatres. Within this film, the star actor Joaquin Phoenix or “Arthur Fleck,” as the movie presents his name, as is the starring role playing the Joker.
The movie starts off by Arthur being institutionalized in a hospital due to identity issues in which he has struggles making relationships with any of the staff. He was dealing with problems with the guards who were watching over him and working at the hospital receiving different forms of abuse. When times were at a low for Arthur, he had met another patient named Harley Quinn, who was also institutionalized within the hospital. Luckily for the two, they were able to fall in love with each other in which they both have dealt with many trials and tribulations in past movies where it made it a lot harder to do so. As they are together, they both were able to be in control of any sort of problems that were occurring throughout Gotham city.
A twist is added in within the movie when musical elements came into place, as they both were previously never known for being involved with positive acts such as dancing or any sort of joyful movement.
Many reviews have been surprisingly low on the new Joker movie such as an IMDb rating it a 5.3/10 along with a Rotten Tomatoes rating it 33%. For me personally, I would have to disagree as I view this movie as a relief for the two actors. As in previous movies, they both have dealt with serious mental health issues that caused their entire lives to turn around.
For the Joker, he had always preached and expected equality throughout the city coming from the higher power such as the government, police, etc. For Harley, she was always on the search to find love and was never able to fulfill her empty heart. Deep down, both of these actors were aiming for a good cause throughout what they were experiencing within their lives, but the act of constant failure is what led to their mental stability continuously lowering to point where viewers considered them insane.
Personally, it is nice to see them both receive a sense of relief within their lives as they both have made mistakes in the past that they are both undoubtably unable to come back from. This movie was ultimately a musical which is considered a whole different façade of who the Joker once was when actor Heath Ledger had played the role. What I didn’t appreciate about this movie was the fact that Arthur never happened to actually be the real Joker.
Overall, the expectation from this movie was to see Arthur continue on his lifestyle in which he caused countless amounts of crimes and murders, but what I appreciated the most was to see him in fact make an attempt to heal, along with Harley Quinn.
