‘I don’t like either of those people’: A Hollywood heavyweight hated ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ so much he went shopping in the middle of it

Ever heard of a “verbal smackdown?” That is exactly what Paul Schrader did to Joker: Folie a Deux in less than 5 minutes of speaking about it.

The unexpected approach of Joker: Folie a Deux didn’t meet audience expectations, reflected clearly in its $164 million box office takings (just $835 million short of 2019’s Joker) and a meager 33% Rotten Tomatoes score. Clearly, the bold leap to transform the originally dark and gritty psychological thriller into a part-musical has landed director Todd Phillips flat on his face. But what really went wrong for audiences wasn’t just the unexpected musical twist, but also how the characters evolved — or, rather, didn’t.

While most of us (and the critics) have still been kind about Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s performances, the Academy Award-nominated writer, director, and critic Paul Schrader had no such patience. Speaking to Interview Magazine‘s Jeremy O. Harris, Schrader brought up watching Joker: Folie a Deux recently, and absolutely thrashed the film. The Hollywood heavyweight revealed how he couldn’t sit through the movie’s 138 minutes of runtime:

“I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it. I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough.”

If someone did that during my film, I’d simply give up my career and start a new life. But in true no-nonsense fashion, director Paul Schrader didn’t mince words when asked about Joker: Folie à Deux. Referring to it as a “really bad musical,” he delivered a scathing review that was equal parts brutal and, honestly, a little hilarious.

But what exactly made the movie so bad for him? Was it Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as actors, or Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn as characters? Perhaps both. Schrader didn’t pull any punches and slammed both the actors and the characters in one swift motion, leaving us wondering whether we should nod along or cringe in our seats. He said,

“I don’t like either of those people. I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like the whole thing. I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, you’d slip out the back door.”

Ouch! It’s safe to say Schrader’s idea of hospitality doesn’t include hosting Joker and Harley Quinn anytime soon. But it wasn’t completely unexpected for him to have this brutal opinion of the film. Coming from a mind that wrote masterpieces like Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), and directed complex narratives like American Gigolo (1980), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), Joker 2 does fall below the belt.

While not as brutal, similar reactions and reviews to the film have been coming in ever since its release. The general consensus among viewers was that the film fell short of their expectations in terms of elevating the Joker persona, and reviews noted that the follow-up only makes the figure into a “singing-and-dancing puppet clown living in his imagination.” (via Variety) As for Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn, the iconic manic energy is just missing.