Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker: Folie à Deux”. Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
“When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you,” so goes the lyrics of Frank Sinatra’s song. The lyrics appeared to be a foreboding of what’s in store in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as can be gleaned in their just-released second official trailer.
From acclaimed writer/director/producer Todd Phillips, the much-anticipated follow-up to Academy Award-winning “Joker,” stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. The 2019 movie earned more than $1 billion at the global box office and remains the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time.
Phoenix reprises his Oscar-winning dual role as the homicidal anarchist Arthur Fleck/Joker, opposite Oscar winner Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) as his love interest, Harley Quinn. Incidentally, Lady Gaga served as music consultant for the film.
In the trailer, Fleck is institutionalized at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love on his way to the “trial of the centiry,” but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.
The movie is actually a musical, psychological thriller, as Fleck and Quinn find love and romance amid the chaos, but just as palpable was the trail of destruction that they were leaving behind.
The first trailer of the movie released in April showed the Clown Prince of Crime meeting Lee (Lady Gaga) in the hallway, who then sends him a gesture of mimicking a gun being fired at her head. “I’m nobody. I haven’t done anything with my life like you have,” she said.
The pair is next seen passionately dancing under the moonlight on the streets of Gotham as the Burt Bacharach-Hal David classic “What the World Needs Now Is Love” plays in the background.
The Venice Film Festival-bound movie also stars Oscar nominees Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) and Catherine Keener (“Get Out,” “Capote”), alongside Zazie Beetz, reprising her role from “Joker.”
Phillips, who was nominated for Oscars for directing, writing and producing “Joker,” returns for “Joker: Folie À Deux” from a screenplay by fellow Oscar nominee Scott Silver, based on characters from DC.
In cinemas October 2, “Joker: Folie À Deux” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Discovery company.