I know some *****ed about him actually loving Harley, but I view it as more of him marking his territory. He made her, she is his property. Nobody else messes with his ****.
People can choose to ***** all they want about how The Joker would never care to get Harley back, or that they turned him into a lovey dovey teddy bear in the film. However, the film essentially leaves it completely ambiguous (maybe to a fault thanks to the edits) as to how he truly feels about her or why he wants to get her back. It's not like he's ever seen professing his deep love for her, crying over her, begging for her, letting her boss him around, etc.
I posted this the other day, but as far as what's presented in the film, we're left to imagine that The Joker views Harley as any one of these things:
His Toy: Joker sees Harley as his creation, and one of his most special ones. He broke Harley apart and remade her into his own image and continues to manipulate and bend her to his will, delighting in watching her strive to please him. When Joker is bored, he can play games with Harley and she will always play back, willingly and with pleasure. He can hurt her and draw her back to him with well-chosen words and deeds. He knows that every time Harley makes an effort to break away it is simply a matter of twisting the screws in the precise way to have her groveling once more.
His Mirror Image: Harley, in both her insane devotion and her adoration of him, is a mirror to The Joker's ego. Highly narcissistic, Harley would provide proof to him of his own genius and brilliance; both in the very fact of her existence and because she willingly tells him so and fervently believes it herself. Similar to above, a Joker in a funk could take one look at Harley and start chuckling again as she stares at him with wide, adoring doe-eyes. Harley is his, body and soul, and that must be immensely gratifying to someone as egotistical as The Joker, especially considering the ease with which he controls her.
His Loved One: Not in any normal, healthy way. But in his way, as much as he is capable of. Some fans feel that love is too strong a word for The Joker. Nonetheless, he mights feel some sort of affectionate emotion towards him. Her uniqueness in response to him penetrated something very deep and buried within Joker's psyche and brought it back to life; a faint glimmer of tenderness consumed by layers of darkness and depravity.
We never really see flashbacks of the two of them alone or behind closed doors (aside from the psych session chemical bath). We don't know whether he used to beat the **** out of her and abuse her, or treated her like a princess. We are, however, shown that The Joker is dangerous murderer who manipulates her to help him escape from Arkham. We see her objectified and dancing erotically in his club like a stripper, before The Joker pushes her onto 'Monster T' like a weirdo. We see The Joker leave her to die and to be captured by Batman after their car is driven over a bridge and into the water. Harley's "title card" in her intro says that she "admitted" to killing Robin, which obviously indicates that she either took the fall for Robin's murder in an effort to protect The Joker, or that he framed her for the murder. Beyond that, the whole Joker/Harley subplot is centered around him trying to break her out of custody and lead her back into a life of crime, on the run from the law -- which is clearly the wrong thing for Harley to do in terms of what's best for her.
So even with all the juicy, abusive material of their darker moments that was sadly cut from the film, it's still not as if the film presents their relationship as this perfectly PC, healthy, normal romance. Most of the "romanticism" of their relationship in the film comes from Harley's side, how she feels about him, and how she views their relationship in both reality and in her fantasy.
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