Written by Christina Hodson and directed by Cathy Yan, Birds of Prey deals head-on with Harley’s problematic origin and relationship with Joker. She begins the movie breaking free of her abusive boyfriend and trying to find herself, something not so easy in a misogynistic world that hates women whether or not they dated murder clowns.
Although amped up to ridiculous degrees, Birds of Prey retains pathos in Harley’s plight. Anyone who has left an abusive relationship knows how hard it is to recover one’s sense of self, and the constant temptation to back to the “safe” relationship you once had, even if that relationship wasn’t safe at all. Sure, Yan and Hodson portray that desire through Harley’s battle with the face-peeling murderer Roman Sionis, aka the Black Mask (Ewan McGregor forced to awkwardly stand in for Joker due to the Leto of it all), and her community consists of female superheroes and supervillains, all hated by insecure men. But that core truth shines through the levels of glitzy, comic book excess.
Harley is, meanwhile, just a supporting character in The Suicide Squad, but Gunn wisely steps aside to let Robbie drive her own character’s arc. As with Birds of Prey, Harley’s story in this 2021 film remains fundamentally relatable underneath the over-the-top superhero excess. She’s tempted to fall back into a relationship with a bad man but finds the strength to stand up for herself and eventually finding beauty in the life she chooses. That standing up for herself might involve shooting the would-be dictator of a small country, and that beauty may climax with shoving a spear into the eye of a giant alien starfish, but the pathos is there.
The One and Only Harley Quinn
To the surprise of no one, Gaga’s best moments in Joker: Folie à Deux involve the fantasy sequences in which she and Joaquin Phoenix sing together, often on the set of a ’70s variety show. Of course, Gaga has a great voice and presence, and she fits snugly among these rare colorful sequences in the film. But even then, Gaga’s subordinated to Phoenix’s Joker, who manifests through flat, often shouted, versions of his songs. Worse, the color scheme, while a welcome break from the gray of the rest of the film, recycles the look of the first Joker film, itself lifted wholesale from Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy.
Contrast that to the fantasy sequence in The Suicide Squad, in which Harley visualizes herself as a Disney princess while absolutely slaughtering the guards trying to hold her. At once sweet and stomach-churning, vibrant and violent, the sequence doesn’t squash Harley to a single Joker-focused plot beat, but lets her shine in all of her contradictions.