Joker: Folie à Deux might present a significantly different interpretation of the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship than is commonly portrayed. Despite various debates about its possible social influence before it was released, Todd Phillips’ Joker was one of the biggest mega-hits of 2019.
It may have been the most unsettling film of the year. Despite the one-off nature of Joker’s story’s format, a musical adaptation of Joker 2 is now under development.
In Folie à Deux, Lady Gaga will play Harley Quinn, the longtime love interest of the Joker, who will accompany Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck. The public perception of the Joker and Harley has been significantly influenced by their long history as DC characters, although the Joker sequel may depart from these representations slightly.
In fact, Joker 2 appears quite likely to innovate with the Joker and Harley, especially in terms of their romance, given the creative storytelling approach used in Joker.
The teaser for Joker 2 makes it abundantly clear that Harley and the Joker will be dating in the follow-up. Likewise, Joker demonstrated that viewers shouldn’t accept anything in Todd Phillips’s darkly comedic DC movies at face value. There is much evidence to suggest that Joker: Folie à Deux will overhaul the Joker and Harley to the greatest extent possible, which is a recipe for even more amazing success, especially in light of the success Joker achieved in how it reworked Mr. J into a totally new version of the character embodied by Arthur Fleck.
Her and Mr. J’s relationship has been toxic since the moment Harley Quinn made her debut in Batman: The Animated Series. The Joker seduces Harley into a relationship where he has authority over her and exercises control over her through his mastery of deception. The fact that she changed her identity from Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn, adopted the Joker’s clown theme, and their overall dynamic all bear the defining characteristics of an abusive relationship.
While incorporating that into Joker: Folie à Deux would seem inevitable, the Mr. J that the Joker portrayed was unquestionably a reimagined character. That does not totally disprove the idea that Arthur Fleck was an abusive boyfriend, but it does imply that such a literal interpretation of the Joker and Harley romance could not be as successful as it has typically been depicted. Joker also provides justification for why it shouldn’t be.
Joker recounts a tale that takes from his established persona while redefining him by giving the Joker a genuine name—Arthur Fleck—with possible ties to Thomas Wayne and depicting him as a struggling, mentally ill man who cracks after a lifetime of bad luck. Joker also reveals Arthur to be much less of a terrorist or criminal mastermind than previous iterations. Arthur Fleck could benefit from a similar reinterpretation of the relationship between The Joker and Harley.
Joker makes a compelling case that he and Harley as a relationship should take advantage of the opportunities that would offer themselves by being vague about the veracity of its plot. Given that Arthur might be imagining everything in Joker (and that Joker 2 may prove this by becoming a musical), his and Harley’s interactions should be given a fresh perspective to startle audiences, like Joker did.
Joker does not depict Arthur as innately evil or aggressive; rather, it shows him as a tormented man who gradually turns into a killer throughout the course of the film. Joker: Folie à Deux might capitalize on this by portraying Arthur and Harley as a loving couple, despite the fact that their relationship is still toxic as a result of their illegal behavior. Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck as a killer Joker could be further distinguished as telling an Elseworlds story by treating Harley with kindness and care they had never experienced before in their romance. Arthur Fleck could be a Joker in DC’s multiverse who can maintain a romance without using physical or emotional abuse. It also appears extremely possible that Arthur and Harley’s romance was created so that Joker could use Lady Gaga’s musical career naturally also making her a key contributor to this side of the movie.
Folie à Deux, joker can also reframe the bond between Mr. J and Harley as being comparable to Arthur’s with Sophie (Zazie Beetz) in Joker. In the same way that Arthur’s romance with Sophie was a fantasy in his head, his romance with Harley in Joker 2 might also be an imagined love story that is ultimately destroyed by the truth. In such a case, there would still be a story to be told, one in which the relationship between Arthur and Harley may develop throughout the entire film.
Even though Sophie wasn’t killed in Joker, Arthur was still in for a big surprise when he found out they had never been together. Joker 2 might possibly turn this moment into a full-length romance. As a result of Arthur picturing another romance that never happened, the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship may change from being abusive to one that is tragic.
A sequel to Joker made sense from a studio viewpoint given its box office success and critical acclaim, but as Todd Phillips noted, a compelling plot would be needed to get Arthur Fleck back to theaters. Although Phillips’s whole plans for the Joker sequel are still unknown, the fact that it is a musical and includes Harley Quinn in the plot adds a ton of fresh ideas.
The musical tale of Joker 2 appears very unlikely to depict the Joker and Harley as recognizably recreated versions of their classical selves with all of that out on the table and Arthur Fleck as the new incarnation of the Joker represented. The musical sequel Joker: Folie à Deux is expected to be a very unique and original Joker and Harley story since the Joker and Harley’s love for each other may be much more warmly depicted but still portrayed in a very grim story.
