You genuinely have to admire the audacity of this film. Made with something with the same scorched earth, anti-fanbase sentiment as The Matrix Resurrections (2021), Folie à Deux is a deliberately provocative anti-film that's aimed squarely at the fanboy culture attending modern superhero franchises. Quite purposefully created as a confidently joyless experience intended to troll a particular demographic of the public who liked the first film for the wrong reasons, director Todd Phillips deliberately employs all manner of anti-techniques (starting with the very presence of musical numbers) that on a purely surface level at least, lead to a rather dour 138 minutes of viewing displeasure.
For someone who holds no love whatsoever for superhero movies (nor any interest in following 'Marvel vs Scorcese' online discourses), it felt to me like I was caught in the crossfire between Phillips and his audience — not entirely unlike the awkwardness one feels when overhearing an argument between a quarrelling couple that you know. Yet in a world where the Hollywood mode of production necessitates that, on some level, a movie must have some kind of economic logic behind it, you simply to admire the audaciousness of releasing such a staggeringly expensive 'fuck you' that was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, certain to bomb.
In that sense, Folie à Deux must be considered less of a movie than an inspired, audacious and highly committed work of movie industry performance art. When every single 'metaverse' movie has been forgotten in the months, years or decades to come, Folie à Deux will remain as a historic achievement that will outlast them.
Bravo — I hated it.
Synopsis: While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.