Finally, a Joker: Folie À Deux trailer with some actual singing

The stars of Todd Phillips’ Joker musical have emphasized over and over again that the film, which reportedly contains 15 “reinterpretations” of pricey classic songs, isn’t actually a musical at all. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga recorded songs and learned choreography for it, but it’s really because it’s an edgy film in which the Joker “[doesn’t have] the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.” Lady Gaga even said she had to forget how to be a good singer to make the whole concept work, telling Variety, “It was a lot about kind of unlearning technique and forgetting how to breathe and allowing the song to completely come out of the character.” It’s curious, then, that Joker: Folie À Deux sounds so much like a musical in the film’s latest trailer. One has to wonder what Phillips planned to say when people actually heard the singing.

We may not get to see Gaga actually performing a song in the new clip, but it’s unmistakably her voice belting out Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life” behind the action. If this is her attempt at “unlearning technique,” she didn’t do a great job, because she sounds really good. It’s also not a great way to show that this is, again, not a musical. There are names in lights and dramatic poses in front of fake blue moons. It’s clearer that this is a Broadway-inspired production than the new Mean Girls movie ever was.

That said, we’ve seen clips that are more in line with the type of singing Phoenix characterized as “dirty in a way that people don’t typically see” and “maybe not the most beautiful rendition of a song” in prior trailers, such as this short clip of Gaga and Phoenix quietly singing Judy Garland’s “Get Happy” in prison. We’ll presumably get to see some dancing paired with all this messy, non-musical singing when Joker: Folie À Deux premieres in theaters October 4.