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Review of Joker: Folie à Deux (Hildur Guðnadóttir)

Score Album

Song Album

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... on several albums to assemble the proper combination album of musical numbers and original score for a complete presentation of this bizarre soundtrack.

Avoid it... if you expect the uneasy merging of lethargic song covers and gloomy, lifeless score to yield any kind of emotional connection.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Joker: Folie à Deux: (Hildur Guðnadóttir) In the history of spectacularly disastrous sequels of immense fiscal loss in Hollywood, the 2024 misfire Joker: Folie à Deux has been compared to Speed 2: Cruise Control as a pinnacle of failure. Few concepts so thoroughly alienate their own fanbases as what the sequel to 2019's Joker has accomplished, audiences so annoyed or ambivalent by the change in the course of the franchise that the studio was faced with losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. At the insistence of lead actor Joaquin Phoenix, the role of songs in Joker: Folie à Deux was expanded to make the film a musical fantasy, yielding a stylistic blend of Natural Born Killers and Moulin Rouge that clearly did not appeal to many audiences. With the psychotic world of the Joker enveloped in singing this time around, the script presents Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga) as the precursor of Harley Quinn to join in that musical world. The two's fates are intertwined only so long as their sung fantasies can occupy the same parallel tracks, Quinn more of a villain than the Joker by the end. Perhaps the most fatal flaw of Joker: Folie à Deux is not the musical element but the choice to defy the DC Comics lore and have Arthur Fleck denounce his character and suffer the consequences for it. A brutal rape scene involving Fleck doesn't much help the likability of the movie, either. The entire affair lost its coolness factor in the sequel, pushing the arthouse stylings so hard that the genre was violated beyond repair. At the heart of this despair is the simple fact that the genres and attitudes of the songs in the musical don't match the original score at all, a problem lessened in Joker because the song placements were source-oriented rather than performed by the characters to advance the narrative. With so many of the songs based in big band, jazz, and light rock staples of long ago, the brooding demeanor of the bulk of the film's music forces a dichotomy from which the whole package cannot recover. Either the original and covered songs need to be guided down some very dark pathways or the score must meet those songs in a more evocative middle. Neither tact was accomplished.

While the score for Joker by Hildur Guðnadóttir was highly awarded because of its obviousness and, frankly, the gender of the composer, the Icelandic musician's role in Joker: Folie à Deux was destined to be nearly impossible to successfully navigate. That's because the songs absorbed all the energy and creativity in the room, in part because of Lady Gaga's involvement but also because their mere existence in musical form is shocking in and of itself for enthusiasts of the franchise, even if just as a representation of Fleck's psychosis. Guðnadóttir was not responsible for the songs' arrangements and production, an entirely separate team of music supervisors and arrangers recording the 16 musical numbers at mostly different studios. With one orchestrator shared between the songs and the score, there is little common DNA outside of occasional lead-ins and conclusions to the numbers that apply the Guðnadóttir sound for connectivity. The choices of songs to cover aren't entirely surprising based on those included in the first film (Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra were a must for inclusion), and they tend to involve the whimsy of big band jazz accented by singular piano flourishes when the fantasy of the two villains is conjoined. In the latter portions of the narrative, you receive far more stark adaptations with the lead performances less supported by grand instrumental whimsy. There's nothing openly comedic or genuinely romantic about these songs (imagine what Marc Shaiman could have conjured for this occasion!), and critics and audiences were quick to notice that Lady Gaga's full vocal capabilities were definitely not utilized for the occasion. Her toned-back demeanor is perhaps a necessity because of Phoenix's rather lackluster singing; the actor hits some notes impressively but generally underwhelms throughout. Even in the one original song provided as awards bait by Lady Gaga, "Folie à Deux," the singer's potential is wasted. That song is featured in the rooftop tango scene and the end credits of the movie and represents an intriguing adoption of waltz movements that bring the Joker character closer to Danny Elfman's musical identification. It's likely the most appealing of all the songs despite having little romantic sensibility to it, but don't expect its melody or waltz stylings to influence Guðnadóttir's dreary and lifeless score in any meaningful way.

The blend of the songs and score in Joker: Folie à Deux represents a massively wasted opportunity. It would seem that the strategy guiding their pairing dictated that the songs address the fantasy element while the score provided the connection to stark, bleak real world. (That doesn't entirely make sense given how prevalent the musical numbers are in the latter half of the story, however.) The task of merging the melodies and arrangements of the songs into the score would have been tough for a masterful, veteran composer, and Guðnadóttir didn't even really try. She was provided with the arrangements to the songs so she could coordinate them with the score, but she had written so much of her portion conceptually before filming that such connectivity was seemingly impossible. Not surprisingly, her score is akin to that of Joker: gloomy, abrasive, rough, and lacking any emotional variability. With the same ominous, dirty low string work and frightfully unpleasant atmospheric textures, the composer reinforces critics' labels as a one-trick pony. Any composer should be commended for bringing the same instrumentation, tone, and themes into a sequel, but this music was so wretchedly underdeveloped in the first film that its wholesale extension here is equally perturbing. Thematically, the basis of score is reestablished in "It's Showtime" and extended to "That Dumb Laugh," anchored by the primary idea of mindless, minor third alternations. That motif shifts to timpani more prominently, sometimes under harsh brass tones, and it stews throughout "Knock Knock" and "Old Neighborhood," with a little more color in the latter. An expanded theme from "It's Showtime" is provided depth in "The Saints" and "The Other Half," and some moderate exploration in "There is No Joker" finally takes hold on bassoons as the main character disintegrates. At the end, "It's All Theater" provides the boldest melodicism, but it's not connected to the Lady Gaga original song as needed. The only suspense and action material in the score is truly awful, blurting brass over chugging dissonance in "Uh Oh, I'm in Trouble" a horrid culmination of percussive ideas previewed in "Buy Me a Drink First?" Overall, the score is a mind-numbingly boring and irritating reminder of the prior work's failure. The score and (only some of the) songs were released on separate, rather short albums; these need combined into one overarching product, including Lady Gaga's full rendition of the new song from her own album. Forcing listeners to purchase three albums to assemble a soundtrack is unacceptable. Then again, so too is the majority of the music.  *

TRACK LISTINGS:

Score Album:
Total Time: 33:29

• 1. It's Showtime (2:50) • 2. That Dumb Laugh (1:59) • 3. Same Ol' Joker (1:40) • 4. The Real You (2:32) • 5. Back on TV (1:24) • 6. Buy Me a Drink First? (1:13) • 7. Trial of the Century (1:42) • 8. My Mother Had Me Committed (1:32) • 9. The Saints (1:17) • 10. The Other Half (1:43)

• 11. Social Services (1:41) • 12. Knock Knock (1:39) • 13. Doppelgänger (2:23) • 14. That's All, Folks (0:54) • 15. Old Neighborhood (1:14) • 16. Uh Oh, I'm in Trouble (1:34) • 17. Voices (2:25) • 18. There is No Joker (1:50) • 19. It's All Theater (2:03)

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Song Album:
Total Time: 41:21

• 1. Slap That Bass/Get Happy/What the World Needs Now is Love - performed by Nick Cave (3:16) • 2. For Once in My Life - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (2:49) • 3. If My Friends Could See Me Now - performed by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix (3:12) • 4. Folie à Deux - performed by Lady Gaga (1:44) • 5. Bewitched - performed by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix (2:59) • 6. That's Entertainment - performed by Lady Gaga (1:41) • 7. When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (1:46) • 8. To Love Somebody - performed by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix (1:50) • 9. (They Long to Be) Close to You - performed by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix (2:49) • 10. The Joker - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (3:41) • 11. Gonna Build a Mountain - performed by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix (3:18) • 12. I've Got the World on a String - performed by Lady Gaga (2:06) • 13. If You Go Away - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (3:19) • 14. Gonna Build a Mountain (Reprise) - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (1:53) • 15. That's Life - performed by Lady Gaga (3:03) • 16. True Love Will Find You in the End - performed by Joaquin Phoenix (2:02)

NOTES & QUOTES:

There exists no official packaging for the digital score album.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Joker: Folie à Deux are Copyright © 2024, WaterTower Music (Score), WaterTower Music/Interscope Records (Songs) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/3/24 (and not updated significantly since).