The sequel to Todd Phillips’ 2019 movie Joker was one of the most anticipated films of the year. Not only would Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, he would be joined by Lady Gaga as the Lee Quinzel, the earlier incarnation of the Joker’s hell-raising girlfriend Harley Quinn.

The trailers teased the idea that Joker and Harley would team up and bring chaos and mayhem to Gotham, so fans were disappointed and angry to discover, after a slow build-up of two hours, involving several off-key musical numbers, that Arthur actually comes to accept that Joker is just a fantasy, a performance designed to please others.

The negative reaction (among both fans and critics) to this let-down was so pervasive that the top ten YouTube channel Watch Mojo managed to produce a segment entitled Top 10 Worst Things about Joker: Folie à Deux.  The list tellingly focused on all the things the film was not or did not do. In other words, criticism was based on the fact that the movie was not what the fans wanted or were hoping for, and that, I suspect, is entirely the point. The director subverted the expectations of the audience and, in the process, held a mirror up to obsessive fan culture. In effect, Todd Phillips is saying “the joke is on you.”

So, what does the film achieve apart from a commentary on fan culture? While Joker is an examination of social conflict, alienation, and how people can be pushed to extreme actions, Folie à Deux delves more deeply into Arthur’s psyche to reveal a horribly scarred, sad and lonely man who just wants to be loved.  He thought he had found love with Lee but she has no interest in Arthur, she just wants to be with Joker, presumably so that her true identity, Harley Quinn, can emerge. Indeed, the more time she spends with Arthur, the more her clothes and makeup transform her into Harley, and in the final courtroom scene, it seems that she is now fully formed.

Even after Arthur’s lawyer reveals that Lee is a fraud, an obsessed fan from a privileged family who checked herself into the Arkham Insane Asylum just to meet Joker, he still believes that she loves him for who he really is. But when Arthur fails to live up to her expectations, Lee cruelly dumps him.

It should have been clear from the first movie that Arthur Fleck was never cut out to be The Joker; it was always just an act, and not a very good one at that. During his appearance on the Murray Franklin Show, Arthur’s vulnerability and lack of purpose was evident even beneath all the clown makeup.

When Arthur fires his lawyer in Folie à Deux and Joker takes over his defence, the performance again lacks conviction. Particularly in his cross-examination of his former colleague Gary Puddles, it is obvious that his heart is not in it. When Gary asks Arthur from the witness stand “why are you doing this?” it really hits home.

In the final scene, Arthur is confronted by another Arkham inmate who wants to tell him a joke. The punchline, about a pathetic old clown getting what he deserves, is delivered with repeated stabbing blows to the gut which leave Arthur bleeding to death on the floor. In the background shadows, the psychopathic inmate cackles manically and slits his mouth into the Joker’s trademark Smile. This scene is foreshadowed by the movie’s opening cartoon sequence in which the Joker is tormented and destroyed by his own shadow. The real Joker is thus revealed as poor Arthur vanishes.