I loathed the 2019 movie Joker. It made over a billion dollars worldwide at the box office and Joaquin Phoenix won his first Oscar for the stand-alone villain origin story. Obviously, I misjudged the tastes of the film-going public. White dudes were especially taken with the story of an abused and mentally ill “Joker” who ran around, killing people. I found the story to be incel-adjacent and I guess that was a major selling point. Anyway, with a film that successful, of course they made a sequel, and the first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux has just been released. The sequel features the introduction of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn – we’d already seen her Harley makeup and costumes in paparazzi photos taken last year, so there’s no big “wow, look at that.”

We heard, months ago, that Folie a Deux would be some kind of musical, and it looks like the plot will revolve around Harley and Joker doing music therapy together as they’re both in the same institution, maybe. While Gaga looks interesting in this role, the whole thing just looks so f–king depressing. If the entire plot takes place within Joker’s delusions… lol. Honestly, the way this is filmed and the way the trailer is cut, it reminds me of Rob Marshall’s Chicago?? Joker = Roxie Hart.

Photos, posters and promotional images courtesy of Backgrid and Warner Bros.