Birds Of Prey [and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn] (2020)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

BIRDS OF PREY is brash, loud, violent, funny, and impeccably choreographed. It’s written by Christina Hodson, directed by Cathy Yan, and produced by its star, Margot Robbie. This can and must be celebrated. 

Yet the film is essentially an empty experience. Harley Quinn has no morals. Had she been turned loose in a moralistic world she would have had more impact: a nihilistic sprite with a madcap brain upsetting an ordered society, highlighting the essential absurdity of existence. However, in the world as presented, that order doesn’t exist; society is a messy blur of nightclubs, brightly lit incompetent cop shops, pop video prisons and chaotic street markets; the super-structure Quinn punctures is nothing more than a second rate criminal hierarchy, run by Ewan McGregor (channeling Sam Rockwell, who wasn’t available for the role.)

Yet it is good fun and moves along with the pace and panache of a Kansas City Bomber.

It is more coherent and better structured than the terrible SUICIDE SQUAD, the film that introduced Robbie‘s Harley Quinn to the DC cinematic universe. It has a diamond maguffin we can follow and a playful way with structure (one of the things it borrows from DEADPOOL along with the flip tone) that somehow holds together even though we swing back and forth in a timeline guided by Quinn narrating her own story.

There are nags. Should Harley have to define herself by her relationship with the clown prince of crime and their recent break-up? Obviously the title tells us it is about her emancipation, but why does she care so much? What did Joker give her that made her this heartbroken when it was taken away? Isn’t she more independent than that? Is she “pretending”, or is her behaviour part of the psychosis-in-extremis of the character? It starts to get interesting when Harley considers how much she cares for a young pickpocket she both rescues and hunts. I like the idea that it all might be an act and underneath she doesn’t care about any of it, not even the Joker. Maybe it’s a strength of the film that we don’t really know where she sits, but I’d rather see the character move away from this male-written Joker origin scenario; it undermines the vital spunk of Harley.

Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn immediately became iconic in that earlier mess of a movie. No mean feat. In BIRDS OF PREY she looks fantastic, in a range of garbs. Huntress and Black Canary do not fare half as well.

Robbie captivates throughout. Self-aware of her own iconography, one of the film’s juicier moments is when Harley fantasises she is Marilyn Monroe singing DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND, wearing red silk trousers instead of the famous dress. It turns into a splatter-fest. It’s a brief moment in the centre of the movie, has nothing to do with the plot, and it is glorious.

The film is splitting people, it seems to be love or hate. It tracked really well with critics and at previews, but the opening weekend in the US is proving disappointing. Go figure. Go see. Take a big brightly coloured mallet. Enjoy.