How Margot Robbie saved Suicide Squad from being a super flop

By Michael Cavna

Washington Post·

10 Aug, 2016 07:48 AM3 mins to read

Margot Robbie stars as Harley Quinn in a scene from the movie, Suicide Squad.

It was already clear nearly a year ago, from the floor of Baltimore Comic-Con, that this month's Suicide Squad would be a hit. There in Charm City, as cosplayers flocked to the Inner Harbour, a costumed Harley Quinn couldn't swing her supersize mallet over her head without hitting, well, another Harley Quinn.

Some of the young women were in traditional full-jester Harley garb. Others were in popsicle-coloured pigtails and ripped tee, rocking the full Margot Robbie. They outnumbered the usual Black Widows and Bat-characters and Wonder Woman look-alikes, and served as a telling bellwether.

Robbie's Harley never ceases to command center stage.

Among fans, the page-to-screen Harley - as the Joker's favourite hot mess - had already reached a critical mass.

Which is why all the fresh rants about "Do movie critics matter?" miss the more telling question about Warner Bros./DC's Suicide Squad, which, in the wake of mostly poor reviews, still opened over the weekend to $135.1 million in the US and $268.4 million worldwide.

No, the more germane query is: How massively did Harley Quinn just rescue the entire Suicide Squad production?

Now, there is no guarantee that Suicide Squad will have box-office legs, let alone hit the magic billion-dollar mark - the film could see a precipitous second-weekend drop approaching an eye-popping 70 per cent, as WB/DC's first superhero-world film this year, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, did. But if the film can even earn anything like BvS's $872.7 million worldwide, it will safely lead to Harley's next projects.

Plus, Suicide Squad, to be sure, is flawed - it certainly would have helped if David Ayer and Co. had had more than a reported two months to turn around a sturdy script. Among fellow die-hard comics fans I know, some would love to get a crack at improving that screenplay.

Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Thankfully, Oscar-nominated actors such as Viola Davis (as Amanda Waller) and Will Smith (Deadshot) deliver strong performances in oft-workmanlike roles. Yet relatively few fans will be cosplaying as them at this year's Balto Con.

Thanks greatly to Harley Quinn's inclusion, nearly half of this past weekend's audience for Suicide Squad trends female - a high percentage for a superhero-world film. I've asked some female relatives and friends who are fierce feminists (including a mental-health therapist - the same kind of work that Harley does): What is it about on-screen Harley Quinn that is appealing?

Harley Quinn is written to be flawed, and on screen, the writing of her is flawed.

They acknowledge that her ever-shorter costumes can be viewed as standard Hollywood-issue sexism and cheap appeal to the young male moviegoer demo. Some point out that the film, unlike the comics and the animated series, glosses over the extreme nature of the Joker's physical abuse (including defenestration).

Yet the same refrain keeps popping up: "We just like her."

Harley Quinn is written to be flawed, and on screen, the writing of her is flawed. But Harley is the new film's safety net, even if so much else doesn't quite land safely. Some other elements of Suicide Squad might be a hot mess, but Robbie's Harley - not unlike Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti's scripting of Harley in the current DC comic books - never ceases to command centre stage.

Margot Robbie and Jared Leto in a scene from, Suicide Squad.

She is playful amid her profound wounds. She seeks to reclaim power amid abuse. She is actually textured and complex beneath the cotton-candy exterior and You Don't Own Me tune.

On the page and on the screen, Harley Quinn never ceases to compel. Which makes fans all the more eager to see Robbie's discussed all-female DC supervillain picture.

Thanks, Harley, for saving the squad.