This month in culture: October 2024
Joker: Folie à Deux In theaters October 4 Set in the aftermath of the first Joker film, Folie à Deux returns to Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck in the Arkham State Hospital as he faces trial for five murders. While under treatment, he meets and falls in love with fellow patient Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, a woman obsessed with his Joker alter ego. The sequel is a smudgy Seventies crime noir deviation from the canonical material of DC Comics characters Joker and Harley Quinn; this Joker does not become the Clown Prince of Crime. With no Batman in sight, Joaquin Phoenix engages in a chaotic pas de deux with Lady Gaga as he stops taking his medication and descends into an MGM dreamscape of musical fantasia.
