It was a bold, risky, and frankly polarizing move. When Todd Phillips announced that the sequel to his billion-dollar gritty character study would be a musical, the internet basically had a collective meltdown. People were baffled. Some were excited. Most just kept asking: Why? Joker 2 Folie à Deux wasn't just a sequel; it was a total deconstruction of the first film's cult status. While the 2019 original felt like a tribute to Taxi Driver, this new installment decided to lean heavily into the aesthetics of old-school MGM musicals like The Band Wagon or Singin' in the Rain. But instead of Technicolor joy, we got a grim, psychological jukebox musical set inside the decaying walls of Arkham State Hospital.
The reality is that the Joker 2 musical elements weren't just there for flair. They were meant to represent the shared delusion—the "folie à deux"—between Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga’s Lee Quinzel.
The Music as a Mental Shield
Music is how Arthur Fleck processes a world that hates him. In the first movie, we saw him dancing alone in bathrooms or down those iconic Bronx stairs. It was silent, internal. In this sequel, that internal rhythm finally finds a voice, but it’s fragmented.
Honestly, calling it a "musical" in the traditional sense feels a bit like a trap. It’s not Wicked. Characters don't just break into song to move the plot forward in a linear way. Instead, the songs function as psychological breaks. When things get too heavy in the courtroom or too violent in the ward, Arthur retreats into a fantasy world where he’s a suave crooner and Lee is his starlet.
Lady Gaga brings a raw, almost unpolished vocal style here that might surprise people used to her "Bad Romance" belt. She’s playing a version of Harley Quinn who is obsessed with the idea of the Joker, not the broken man beneath the makeup. Her singing is often haunting, grounded, and intentionally imperfect to match the grim reality of Arkham.
They cover classics. "Get Happy," "For Once in My Life," and "That’s Entertainment!" all make appearances. But they are twisted. These aren't celebratory performances. They are the desperate echoes of a man trying to feel like he’s the protagonist of a grand romance rather than a defendant in a triple-murder trial.
Why the Musical Format Frustrated Fans
If you go into this expecting a superhero movie, you’re going to be disappointed. Todd Phillips knew exactly what he was doing, and part of that was seemingly annoying the very audience that championed the first film as a "sigma male" anthem.
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By turning the Joker 2 musical into a series of dream sequences, the film strips away the "cool" factor of the Joker. It shows Arthur as someone who is deeply pathetic, someone who can only find power through a microphone that isn't actually there. This shift in tone is why the film received such a mixed reception at the box office and among critics.
- The pacing is slow.
- The musical numbers often stop the plot dead in its tracks.
- The ending is a massive "screw you" to the traditional comic book origin story.
Many viewers felt the music took away from the tension. In a standard thriller, you want the stakes to ramp up. Here, every time the tension peaks, we get a three-minute sequence of Joaquin Phoenix tap-dancing. For some, it’s brilliant subversion. For others, it’s an expensive experimental film that forgot to be entertaining.
The Influence of Jacques Demy and Classical Cinema
Phillips has been vocal about his inspirations. He wasn't looking at modern Broadway. He was looking at 1964’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. If you haven't seen it, that’s a film where every single line of dialogue is sung. While Joker 2 Folie à Deux isn't through-sung, it carries that same melancholic weight.
There’s a specific scene on a rooftop—part of a hallucination, obviously—where the lighting shifts to a deep, theatrical blue. It’s gorgeous. It’s also completely jarring compared to the dirty, sweat-stained reality of the prison cells. This contrast is the entire point of the movie. Arthur is trying to live in a musical while the rest of the world is stuck in a depressing legal drama.
Lady Gaga and the Reimagined Harley Quinn
Lee Quinzel isn't the victim here. That’s the big twist. In most versions of the story, Joker manipulates Harley. In this Joker 2 musical iteration, Lee is the one pulling the strings of Arthur’s imagination. She encourages the music. She feeds the delusion.
Gaga’s performance is subtle until it isn’t. She uses her voice as a tool to draw Arthur further away from reality. When she sings "(They Long to Be) Close to You," it isn't a sweet love song. It’s an obsession. It’s a demand.
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Interestingly, the film chose to use "live" singing on set. Most musicals have actors lip-sync to a pre-recorded track to ensure perfect pitch. Phoenix and Gaga sang live with a pianist playing off-camera, allowing them to change the tempo based on their acting choices. It makes the songs feel jittery and nervous. It’s uncomfortable to watch, which is exactly what a Joker movie should probably feel like.
Behind the Scenes of the $200 Million Gamble
Warner Bros. spent a staggering amount of money on this. For a R-rated musical drama that spends half its runtime in a courtroom, $200 million is an astronomical budget.
A huge chunk of that went to the leads—Phoenix reportedly took home $20 million and Gaga $12 million. But the rest is visible in the production design. The recreation of Gotham’s judicial system and the expansive, nightmare-ish sets of Arkham are top-tier.
However, the "musical" label likely hurt its financial legs. Casual fans of the first movie weren't looking for a deconstruction of the genre. They wanted more chaos in the streets. Instead, they got a tragedy about a man realizing he isn't a symbol; he’s just Arthur.
Key Facts About the Soundtrack
The soundtrack is a mix of standards and original compositions by Hildur Guðnadóttir, who won an Oscar for the first film’s score.
- The Joker (from the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd): This is the thematic backbone of the film.
- Bewitched: Used to highlight the hypnotic connection between Arthur and Lee.
- If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas): A devastating moment that highlights Arthur's fear of abandonment.
These songs weren't chosen at random. They are artifacts of the mid-20th century, the kind of music Arthur likely heard on his mother's TV growing up. They represent a "lost" era of glamour that Arthur desperately wants to inhabit.
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Final Verdict on the Folie à Deux Experiment
Is it a good musical? Not by traditional standards. The choreography isn't spectacular, and the singing isn't meant to be "pretty."
Is it a good sequel? That depends on why you liked the first one. If you liked the first Joker because you thought he was a cool rebel, you will likely hate this. If you liked it because it was a bleak look at mental illness and societal failure, then the musical elements add a new, albeit painful, layer to that story.
The Joker 2 musical format serves as a barrier. It sits between the audience and the character. It forces us to see Arthur as he sees himself—a performer who has lost control of the show.
What to do next:
- Watch the original "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" to see where Todd Phillips got his visual inspiration for the color palettes and "sung-through" emotional beats.
- Listen to the "Folie à Deux" companion album by Lady Gaga, titled Harlequin. It features jazz-standard covers that provide more context to her character’s headspace than the film alone does.
- Re-watch the first film’s bathroom dance scene. Notice the lack of music. Then, watch the sequel’s courtroom song. The transition from silence to "theatrical madness" is the key to understanding Arthur Fleck’s entire journey.
By looking at the film as a critique of the "Joker" persona rather than a celebration of it, the musical numbers start to make a lot more sense. They aren't there to entertain you; they are there to show you how far Arthur has drifted from the real world.