Shes introduced hanging from the top bars in her cell like some demented Cirque de Soleil acrobat, to the retro strains of Aussie singer Graces cover ofLesley Gores 1963 feminist declaration You Dont Own Me. She is pale, giggly, calculating and off her proverbial rocker. Shes a woman at the mercy of sadistic men, many of them, in fact some of whom love her enough to jump in after her when she dives into a vat of acid (which theyve coerced her into doing) and others who like watching her seductively lick the bars of her maximum-security home away from home. (Those folks know, however, that given the chance, shell put five of them in the hospital.) Shes a Bronx gal whos handy with a bat. She is Shiva, the bringer of death, in smeared clown make-up.
Her name is Harley Quinn, and youve probably seen legions of her admirers skipping around every Halloween. As played by Margot Robbie, shes the best thing about Suicide Squad, the big DC Universe bring-on-the-bad-guys extravaganza that desperately wants to prove the burgeoning multiverse franchise can do dark and funny. Everything the film wants to be is in that performance. And Harley is, hands down, the single biggest piece of collateral damage involved in this scorched-earth, soul-killing cinema du superhero blockbuster. You can forgive many of its sins. You cant forgive nearly ruining a complex, iconic character who deserves way better than this.
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Yes, Suicide Squad is as bad as youve heard. Its not quite the flaming Hindenberg of tentpole movies or, as some have said, as wretched as last summersFantastic Four. You will see worse superhero movies, to be sure; if youve seen big studio projects that rhyme with Schmarcraft and Schmalice Through the Schmooking Schmlass, youve endured worse disasters this year. But its bad. And the major criticisms against it that something was compromised and defanged in the name of a PG-13 rating; that its attempt to be both revisionist and a rollercoaster ride flatlines; that Jared Letos cartel-druglord-chic Joker is barely in it; that it apparently got a Costco-bulk deal for its soundtrack; that its incoherent storytelling resembles a comic-book Burroughs cut-up are all 100-percent valid. You can petition to shut down Rotten Tomatoes all you want. Maybe redirect that rage to the DC/WB powers that be.
No wonder Harley is a cosplay favorite. Shes the Joker with an XX edge. Robbie gets that.
But the biggest letdown is the way the movie underserves both Harley and the actor playing her, because buried beneath the debris of third-verse-same-as-the-first set pieces is some incredibly interesting, go-for-baroque work that Robbie is doing. Those who know her from the animated Batman series and the best-selling comic books know shes a complex character, having evolved from nameless Jokers sidekick to the Clown Prince of Crimes codependent moll to name-in-the-title heroine whos, in writer Abraham Riesmans words, Jewish, queer, morally questionable, deeply imperfect and beloved by millions. (You can read a deep-dive into Quinns various incarnations here.) It might have been asking a lot to stuff her many painted faces into a movie already burdened with juggling a lot of actors, characters, future movie set-ups and baggage. Robbie knows this, as much as she knows this is the films breakout character, the unhinged id of the whole group.
So she goes all in on the crazy, offering up a gloriously anarchic version of Quinn thats more than the sum of her Daddys Lil Monster baseball tee, hot pants and fishnets. All that candy-colored carnage and irreverence we were promised in those stunning trailers what actually makes it in to the movie comes from her, one grinning bat-to-the-skull at a time. She laces in pathos and empowerment amidst the psychopathy and pining over her green-haired puddin,' notably when shes yelling at another fucked-up Squad cohort with issues: Own that shit! You own it. If Harley is indeed a pawn of the Joker and Viola Davis predatory patron Amanda Waller, not to mention what Buzzfeed called damaged dolly jerk-off material, Robbies version is also someone who owns her damage, her weaponized sexuality, her no-holds-barred cuckoo-ness. Theres a sick giddiness to the way she relishes her acting out every violent tendency that pings through her cross-wired cranium, a reveling in her villainy what every member of DCs Dirty Half-Dozen should be doing. No wonder Harley is a cosplay favorite. Shes the Joker with an XX edge. Robbie gets that.
Or rather, thats what the actor channels when shes allowed to do it. The tragedy is that you can see a great performance peeking through the surface here, a suggestion of the sick joke this movie could have been. There are layers that are being hinted at here, of PTSD and unhealthy push-pull dynamics between lovers, of a cracked person who expresses herself in chaos-reigns broad strokes, of someone who can be sad one second and animalistic the next. (The films best moment involves someone trying to pull Quinn from the windshield of an underwater car and her reaction is to lash/slash out with a blade.) Robbie is clearly trying to inject unpredictability into a movie that keeps swerving into noisy, numbing predictability, while seemingly dropping in peekaboos of fan-favorite iterations: abusee, abuser, sexed-up Venus flytrap, lovesick loose cannon, a feminist avenger who has to jet off to cameo in the Lemonade video everything but the current Sapphic incarnation. The film keeps slotting her back into blood-specked fetish-object mode, a reduction rather than a reclamation, merely one mans fire in my loins, the itch in my crotch. (Thats a line from the Joker, by the way, and not from a Vanity Fair profile.)
Somewhere out in the world, theres a cut of Suicide Squad that has all of Robbies takes playing off each other like funhouse mirror reflections, and would showcase what could very well be a definitive or less demeaning screen version of Harley. That movie is not what youll get when you plunk down your cash to soak in the supervillain sound and fury this weekend. Instead, we have to live with a compelling, flawed Clown Princess of Crime and her wisecracks, and what could still be a star-making turn for Robbie if this beached whale of a blockbuster doesnt sink her career. Shes still the most livewire thing about this endeavor. Give her a solo film and a girlfriend. Explore her contradictions. Pass her some gasoline, a match and let the lady watch the world burn her way.
Watch the full Suicide Squad trailer here.