Barbie (2023) | REVIEW

Directed by Greta Gerwig (Little Women) — Screenplay by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story).

This weekend, the movie event of the year finally arrived with the release of the escapist comedy and social satire picture Barbie and the dark and dense historical epic and biopic Oppenheimer. The simultaneous release of two films from modern auteurs Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan couldn’t just be counterprogramming. Rather, the internet decided that it had to be a meme (Barbenheimer, it’s been dubbed). Theater owners all over the world ought to be rejoicing at the internet’s impromptu online public support for a double billing of two films that in most ways couldn’t be farther apart. Moviegoing audiences are also in luck, because it just so happens that both films are terrific. Although the very pink and mostly lighthearted IP-driven comedy from Greta Gerwig may, from the outset, seem trivial when compared to the adult-oriented three-hour Christopher Nolan epic about our ability to destroy ourselves, the Barbie movie does have quite a bit to say, and it would be wrong to disregard it as a cynical cash grab or a marketing exercise. This one is as fun and lighthearted as it is critical.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie follows the stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) who lives in her own matriarchal paradise known as Barbieland alongside all of the various self-sufficient and successful Barbies (a President Barbie, a Nobel prize winner Barbie, and so on and so forth) but also the discontinued line of Barbie dolls. Oh yeah, and the Kens are also there tending to the beach, caring about petty squabbles between them, and pining over the Barbies of their lives. One of these Kens (played by Ryan Gosling), who specializes in ‘beach’ (not lifeguard, swimmer, or surfer, just beach), is really struggling as stereotypical Barbie is more interested in her girls’ nights and independence than the relationship he so desires.

One day, everything starts to go awry for stereotypical Barbie. Her imaginary shower is cold, she burns her toast, she starts to think about her very existence and death itself, she gets flat feet, and she no longer has perfect skin. Decidedly alarmed, stereotypical Barbie seeks out ‘weird Barbie’ (played by Kate McKinnon) who informs her that she must go to the real world and reconnect with the child that plays with her if she is to ever fix her affliction. Hoping to grow closer to stereotypical Barbie, her Ken tags along unannounced. Together, Barbie and Ken encounter the real world, which startles Barbie but also inspires Ken for all the wrong reasons.

Barbie is the rare IP-driven blockbuster film that both has moments of deep-rooted nostalgia baked into it as well as something deeper on its mind than its plastic appearance suggests. This isn’t just a feature-length product advertisement (I write ‘just’ because, of course, to a certain extent any Barbie movie would be that), it isn’t a disposable lightweight object. This is because of the people involved with crafting it for the big screen. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach are both filmmakers with voices and visions that tend to echo through their final products. However, this is also a film built on the established formula of The LEGO Movie. What Gerwig has done with that formula is to deliberately and carefully pepper in thought-provoking lines touching on themes such as predestination, existentialism, feminism, gender politics and standards, and how the largely male leaders of Mattel — the toy manufacturing company behind the Barbie doll — may have, for years, set unrealistic beauty standards and misled the young women who buy their dolls. Sure, some of the lines are perhaps a tad on the nose, but, for the most part, Gerwig has served up a scathing social satire masquerading as a ‘dolls come alive’ movie. It is a film that uses pastel colors, plastic, nostalgia, and a good soundtrack as a Trojan horse to talk about double standards, gender stereotype contradictions, patriarchy, and agency.

This isn’t to say that it isn’t funny. It is. It isn’t to say that it doesn’t have a well-utilized soundtrack. It does. Or that it doesn’t have incredible artistry involved in crafting it. It does have that. In fact, let’s move on and talk about that. Gerwig’s film has attention to detail with regard to Jacqueline Durran’s costumes and the tactility of its pinker-than-pink set design. It is a gorgeous and sugary sweet film for the vast majority of the runtime (though there is an odd car chase that felt like a car commercial). Much like how every day in The LEGO Movie opened with “Everything Is Awesome,” the Barbie film uses a track of its own to guide the day-to-day activities of stereotypical Barbie and this leads to some witty timing and deviations. I’ll also add that I was genuinely moved by the moments in which Billie Eilish’s poignant Barbie song “What Was I Made For,” is weaved into the film’s score.

And the film’s excellent cast makes the film’s musings on patriarchy genuinely funny. I’m sure there will be some thin-skinned individuals that won’t handle the way the film pokes fun at male stereotypes and interests well, but I honestly think this film is really loving of all of its characters and the jokes that make fun of them are zeitgeist and spot-on. Some men will definitely feel called out, but it’s all in good fun — lighten up. Margot Robbie is predictably perfect as the stereotypical Barbie (there’s a witty breaking the fourth wall-moment that even proclaims that she’s too perfect for the role). She really throws herself into the more emotional scenes to such an extent that you feel how much this project means to her. Hers is not the only performance that elevates the film. Ryan Gosling, whose funny bone has always been intact, runs away with the movie. He is the film’s not-so-secret weapon, and the film is just as interested in his arc as it is in Barbie’s. Gosling is the film’s primary comic relief, and every joke of his lands — just like his big musical number is both catchy and rooted in character disillusionment. Gosling is note-perfect.

I had a great time with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. This is an undeniably (sometimes overwhelmingly) sugary sweet but scathing social satire from an auteur in top form. It manages to be every bit as funny as it is spot-on about its commentary on gender politics and social standards in large part thanks to excellent performances delivered by Margot Robbie and especially Ryan Gosling. It’s sublime!

8.5 out of 10

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.