The Joker's true identity revealed in new movie Folie à Deux - and it's not who you think it is

The real identity of the Joker is revealed in the second instalment of director Todd Phillip's Oscar-winning film from 2019

The real identity of the Joker is revealed at the end of the new Folie à Deux movie starring Lady Gaga – and it’s not who you think it is.

Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role as clown Arthur Fleck for the second instalment of director Todd Phillips imagining of the famous story.

At the end of the Oscar-winning 2019 film, simply titled Joker, Arthur is seen pacing the halls of an asylum covered in blood after killing his therapist. Prior to that he murdered his mother who he discovered was complicit in his neglect as a child, one of his former colleagues who set him up and got him fired and three employees of Wayne Industries (owned by Batman’s parents) who attacked him. He also shot dead talk show host Murray Franklin, played by Robert De Niro, on live TV after he publicly mocked Arthur's comedy act.

But though the first movie appeared to show Arthur’s transition into Joker as he stopped taking his medication and became more mentally unwell - lashing out at anyone who had been unkind to him in his life – the second movie ends with an unexpected twist.

The movie begins with Arthur behind bars in the asylum, waiting to see if he will be deemed sane enough to stand trial for the murders he committed two years previously.

This is where he meets Lady Gaga’s character Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel, who fans believe later becomes Joker’s girlfriend Harley Quinn.

As the pair become smitten with each other, Lee makes it clear she loves his alter ego Joker, ‘the crown prince of crime’ and not introvert Arthur. As Arthur grapples with his identity throughout the film – and his lawyers claim he has multiple personality disorder which caused him to commit his crimes - he ends up renouncing his Joker alter ego in the final scenes and is found guilty of first-degree murder as himself.

During sentencing, a car bomb goes off outside court - with two people helping Arthur escape. However, he is later caught by police and returned to Arkham Asylum.

The movie ends with a young patient beginning to tell Arthur a joke, before stabbing him in the stomach. As he bleeds to death, his attacker carves a smile into his own face – suggesting Arthur never actually became Joker, but inspired the person who would eventually become him.

Explaining the controversial ending, director Todd Phillips told Entertainment Weekly: “When those guards kill that kid in the hospital, he realises that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck, he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on hum ad he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore – he wants to be who he is.”

Phillips added the ‘sad thing is, he’s Arthur and nobody cares about Arthur’. He points out that Gaga’s Lee never calls him Arthur in the film until she leaves him on the same steps he danced on in the original movie. He said: “She’s realising, ‘I’m on a whole other trip, man’. You can’t be what I wanted you to be.”

*Joker: Folie à Deux is out in UK cinemas now

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