Joker: Why the French Say No to Him

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in front of a blue sky

Joker, a tortured masterpiece, embodied by Joaquin Phoenix. An Oscar-winning film, admired, adored… in the United States. And yet, last night, TF1 aired it and… disaster! A flop. Only 1.98 million viewers. A number so low you might think the entire country of France had gone on vacation… or was watching documentaries about the Cold War on Arte. That’s saying something.

So, why this massive rejection of Joker by the French public? Let’s try to unravel this mystery.

The French and American films… a complicated love story

The French love American films, that’s well known. But be careful, they love the great classics: Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, and for the younger ones, the Avengers who smash everything, or a good Tom Cruise jumping off a building. That’s cinema. But a guy who puts on makeup alone in his bathroom and ends up bursting into laughter because of a broken-down subway… that doesn’t go over well.

Why? Maybe because here, we like our big villains to be civilized. Belmondo, for example. He also broke faces, but with a smirk, a cigarette between his lips, and jumping out of a plane. Joaquin Phoenix, on the other hand, prefers stairs. And very long ones, with strange music echoing behind. Not really our thing, apparently.

Joaquin Phoenix: too intense for France?

Ah, Joaquin… A genius actor, certainly. But when he grimaces, it’s a whole festival. His facial muscles deserve their own César. Only, by grimacing so much, diving into madness, he ends up exhausting us. We want to laugh, we want to cry, but here, we’re just… tired.

A Joker who laughs, but doesn’t make us laugh? Hard to swallow for the French viewer. Here, we prefer Louis de Funès. At least when he screams, we laugh. But Phoenix? Each burst of laughter is an invitation to call a therapist. It’s a lot to handle for a Sunday night.

Lady Gaga in the sequel? Oh no, thank you…

The final blow: the sequel, with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Yes, the pop star with eccentric outfits, who jumps from singing to acting without transition. An explosive mix that, on paper, seemed promising. But on screen, it’s like adding blue cheese to a chocolate macaron: two strong flavors that don’t necessarily blend well.

And then, a Joker in a musical? That’s bordering on heresy. French fans, they want drama, not a sing-along. The audience probably thought: "No, here, they’re taking us for fools."

Conclusion: was Joker an inevitable flop?

In the end, Joker might just be too American. Too dark, too intense, too… everything. The French, they prefer a film that alternates between tragedy and lightness, like their great classics. Or they like to take refuge in thrillers like Kompromat, a serious film, grounded in reality, with a Gilles Lellouche much closer to their daily life.

Joker, on the other hand, might be doomed to remain this strange and misunderstood character, who laughs (or not) alone in his corner. But no matter, Joaquin Phoenix will always have his place in Hollywood. In France, however, it’s another story…

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