The 2019 movie Joker was a success, and it won many awards, including an Oscar for Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Best Music. Hollywood being Hollywood means that successful movies need a sequel, resulting in Joker: Folie à deux, with Guðnadóttir returning to write the score.
When I listen to the soundtrack album for Folie à deux, many similarities can be found between this film and the first. Both scores are about half an hour long for a movie that is over two hours in length. For the second movie, Guðnadóttir chose to use the same soundscape with a significant focus on the low strings to set a mood to support the scenes with long lines. I am not drawn to this kind of mood-based music, but the soundtrack for the first Joker movie had some tracks that stood out, like “Bathroom Dance.” The music for Folie à deux, however, does not have these kinds of highlights because the music she wrote does not play a prominent role in this film. After all, it must give room to something else: the songs.
In case you didn’t know – I also found out just a couple of days before watching the film – Joker: Folie à deux is a musical in which Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, who portray Joker and Harley Quinn, sing quite a few songs. Normally, I would love the idea of trying something entirely different for a sequel, but this time it did not work for me. Emotions are essential in musicals. The music for a musical is very melodic, and in the song’s melody, you can easily pinpoint emotions like longing, love, hate, despair, and so on. In between musical songs, music can fill the gaps and is melodic and emotional in the majority, making it easy to transition in and out of a song. Guðnadóttir’s mood-based music is incompatible with that purpose and makes for too big of a contrast with the musical idea, resulting in both the score and the songs falling out of place.
I think there are some interesting ideas to be found in many aspects of Joker: Folie à deux, like the plot of the story and the idea of it being a musical, but the execution leaves much to be desired. This is a shame because if the sequel was a regular movie with only Guðnadóttir’s music that was allowed to shine at crucial moments in the film, or if it went totally into the musical direction, including a melodic score matching those songs, I would probably have liked it better.
Listen or buy
- Buy this soundtrack from Amazon or Apple Music
- Listen to this soundtrack on Spotify
Tracklist
The highlights are in bold.
- It’s Showtime (2:50)
- That Dumb Laugh (1:59)
- Same Ol’ Joker (1:40)
- The Real You (2:32)
- Back on TV (1:24)
- Buy Me a Drink First? (1:13)
- Trial of the Century (1:42)
- My Mother Had Me Committed (1:32)
- The Saints (1:17)
- The Other Half (1:43)
- Social Services (1:41)
- Knock Knock (1:39)
- Doppelgänger (2:23)
- That’s All, Folks (0:54)
- Old Neighborhood (1:14)
- Uh Oh, I’m in Trouble (1:34)
- Voices (2:25)
- There Is No Joker (1:50)
- It’s All Theater (2:03)
Total length: 33 minutes
WaterTower Music (2024)
