Birds of Prey
Margot Robbie is in that rarefied air with Christopher Reeve, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans as an actor whom “owns” a comic book character on the big screen. Her work as Harley Quinn has not been a part of the best movies, with “Suicide Squad” and “Birds of Prey,” but this is her role, and it’ll be hard to ever see someone else playing her. “Suicide Squad” set her up; “Birds of Prey” lets her rip.
The Joker-Harley Quinn relationship has always been one that can get misconstrued. It’s an abusive relationship at its core. Joker is the dominant man, who uses and abuses Harley’s trust and mind to his own devices. We got a hint of that in David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad”; in Cathy Yan’s “Birds of Prey,” she’s finally broken free, and she’s trying to make it on her own in Gotham. The Joker doesn’t appear anywhere in the film, but we hear about him plenty, from Harley, and from men in Gotham trying to make her feel marginalized as she tries to strike out as a force to be reckoned with. It takes some fellow women, all of whom are marginalized in their own ways, to make her realize that, and that we understand how that happens, all without going out of the lines of characterization Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson have built for these characters, is one of the film’s strengths.
Quinn’s story starts with her blowing up Acme Chemicals as a message to Joker that they are through. She’s struggling to get back on her feet after the break-up, though, but soon enough, Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor)- a crime boss who uses fear and money to buy power in Gotham- gives her something that will help with that when she, inadvertently, gets stuck in the middle of him getting his hands on the fortune of one of the legendary crime families in Gotham. A diamond allegedly holds the key, but before he can get it, a young thief (Cassandra Cain, played by Ella Jay Basco) steals it from his right hand man (Chris Messina) and his driver, who also sings by the name of Black Canary in his club (Jurnee Smollett-Bell). Harley will find herself in a race to get the kid, and the diamond, with Roman’s men, an assassin named Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and a detective trying to bring Roman down (Renee Montoya, played by Rosie Perez). Hell, it’s so complicated Harley has to sort out the proper way to tell us on the run.
One of the things I appreciated the most in Cathy Yan’s vision of “Birds of Prey” is that she, Hodson, and Robbie (who helped produce the film) try and find a sweet spot in tone between the Dark Knight Gotham and colorful characters of Joel Schumacher’s “Batman” films from the ’90s. It doesn’t get too dark, but it also doesn’t play it too light, either; this is ultimately a violent criminal world, but also one where a character like Harley can navigate. This film kind of sets her up like Deadpool- self-aware and prone to absurd one-liners- but Harley is someone whose intellect, and personality, is what endears her as a character more than her capacity for violence and ability to quip. Robbie understands what makes this character tick, and it’s a big part of the success she’s seen in bringing her to life. A relationship with the Joker that follows the arc of comics and TV shows, where they always end up together, isn’t interesting in this cinematic universe (especially when said Joker, played by Jared Leto in “Suicide Squad,” was so fundamentally broken as a characterization); a story of a woman leaving a broken relationship behind, and trying to put her life together, is much more interesting, and the women behind this movie nail it. That they’ve surrounded Harley (and Robbie) with a Rogues Gallery of equally compelling female characters, played by great talents like Basco, Smollett-Bell, Winstead and Perez, and have them come together in a way that feels very natural, and not out-of-character, is another success in this movie’s favor. On the opposite end of the spectrum is McGregor as Roman, and the actor seems to be having the time of his life playing a vicious, misogynistic blowhard who has plenty of bluster, but is ineffectual when he cannot buy his way out of a situation. He makes a great foil for Harley, and a motivator for the women to team up against.
I’m curious how Robbie is able to continue developing Harley on screen from film-to-film, whether it’s next year’s “The Suicide Squad” reboot or another “Birds of Prey” film. I hope it involves a throughline wherein the character can grow and adapt and become as iconic as the likes of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. This lays a good groundwork for that being possible, and I’m all for it.
