Coming out of Tumblr retirement to issue a necessary trigger warning for BIRDS OF PREY:
Disappointed to say I did not enjoy this film. Yes, the character work was great, the actors really brought their A-game, especially Margot Robbie. The fight choreography was stellar and entertaining. But I feel the trailers did the film a great disservice (much like SUICIDE SQUAD before it). This is not a fun action romp. This is an extremely dark story. Ewan McGregor as Black Mask is the most unsettling villain since David Tennant as Kilgrave.
Gendered violence is baked into the plot, purposely, but I could have done without it. Or at least a warning so I didn’t almost bolt from the theater during a particularly nasty exchange which left a female character (a glorified extra) partly naked and crying. Besides that scene, just off the top of my head, the film has an implied sexual assault, an attempted sexual assault, and several torture scenes with strong undercurrents that sexual violence is imminent. Oh, and a throw-away line indicating Harley’s dad sex trafficked her from the age of six.
That scene from the trailer where Harley looks like Marilyn Monroe from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES? It isn’t a fun musical number but a hallucination brought on from being back-handed too hard while tied to a chair.
Yes, vengeance belongs to the women at the end of the day but there was no need to make the story about this. At all. Especially in such a ham-fisted way when MAD MAX: FURY ROAD showed you can deal with these issues without traumatizing the audience. It felt like an over-correction to SUICIDE SQUAD failing to portray Joker and Harley’s relationship as domestic abuse. Go see it if you want, but please go in knowing it is very triggering if you’ve ever been in an abusive situation.
