Cathy Yan’s “Birds of Prey” is, for the most part, a borderline live-action cartoon with dynamite throwing hijinks, adoration of bacon and egg sandwiches, and lots of fun and cartoonish behavior.
At one point though, Ewan McGregor’s wonderfully campy and scenery chewing Roman Sionis/Black Mask villain gives everyone a cold, hard reminder of how much of a misogynistic and dangerous prick he can be. In said scene, Roman receives bad news in his club and then hears a young female patron named Erica laughing at another table.
Assuming she’s mocking him, he forces her to stand and then dance on a table top in front of the now silent and mostly terrified clubgoers who can’t intervene. Already publicly humiliated, Roman doesn’t stop, mocking her and getting one of her cohorts to tear off Erica’s dress with a steak knife until she’s stripped and left only in her underwear, torn dress and tears.
Nevertheless she must continue to dance for Roman’s perverse amusement while Canary, shedding a tear and as mortified by Roman’s behavior as everyone else, has little choice but to stand by the sidelines.
It’s a highly uncomfortable scene, certainly the most deadly serious and disturbing of the film, but Yan smartly lets it unfold in real time and doesn’t cut away or turn the moment into a cheap joke. Yan reveals to THR that, much like Patty Jenkins had to do for the No Man’s Land scene in “Wonder Woman,” she had to fight to keep that scene in the theatrical cut:
“I’ll be honest: we had to fight to keep that scene because it was uncomfortable. It was risky, and we had to fight to keep it at all. There are cuts of the movie without it. I’m really glad that we kept it because I think it’s important. I think that a lot of people have been very impacted by that scene.
I think it’s a huge turning point for Roman; it’s a huge turning point for Canary, and the way that we shot it was hopefully not about the sexual violence upon the woman. It was more about Roman, what he’s capable of and Canary seeing him for who he really is for the first time. Now, she can fully cut herself off from him, and I thought it was a really important scene. So, we fought for it.”
She was also asked whether the studio pushed for DCEU crossovers, and the filmmaker confirmed that they, for the most part, did not:
“Yes and no. They were pretty supportive and hands-off in terms of that specific thing of having it connect to this film, the next film or anything like that. We paid homage where we felt it was appropriate. I also thought it would be very jarring to see Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, in a completely different look.
So, we kept her tattoos, but then we also doctored them and grounded them in character and what she was going through. The ‘J’ turned into the mermaid, and ‘pudding’ was turned into ‘pudding cups.’ We kept her hair, and we thought, ‘What if she’s not taking care of it as well? What if it just kinda grows out?'”
Asked if there’s any storyline she’d like to do for a sequel, she says: “I would certainly love to see the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.” “Birds of Prey” is available via VOD now, check out the recent Honest Trailers clip for the film below:
