Barbie (2023 | USA | 114 minutes | Greta Gerwig)
Every time I saw a TV commercial or product tie–in for the new Barbie movie – and there were a lot – I had the same thought: “this movie better be good.” It gives me immense pleasure to report that, for the most part, it is an extremely well-made and enjoyable, often (literally) otherworldly, movie that will delight its audience.
Of course, Barbie lives in Barbieland, a sort of girly utopia where Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie, perfectly cast), President Barbie (Issa Rae), Weird Barbie (Kate MacKinnon), and countless other Barbies live in harmony with the Kens (Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, others) and Allan, an agamogenetic dork played by Michael Cera.
The worldbuilding of Barbieland is remarkable and wondrous. Someone should create an amusement park based on Greta Gerwig’s and co-writer/husband Noah Baumbach’s vision. By all accounts, life in plastic is fantastic. The details are simply awe-inspiring. The Mattel boardroom looks like it was a cross between Dr. Strangelove’s war room (where there’s no fighting) and the offices of The Hudsucker Proxy.
The cast is also outstanding, particularly the leads. Margot Robbie probably is the actress that most embodies the look of the Barbie prototype but after leaving the theater, it was impossible for me to imagine anyone else in the part. Certainly not Amy Schumer. She has the comedic timing, outward warmth, and acting skills that sync perfectly with her traditional beauty. Ryan Gosling, handsome and fit, and also an underrated comedic actor, was another inspired casting choice. As was Will Ferrell, the Mattel CEO who is committed to the appearance of diversity (“We’ve got gender-neutral bathrooms coming out the wazoo!”).
The script is full of laugh-out-loud jokes and gags. In more than eleven years together, I’ve never seen my girlfriend laugh as hard as she did during a scene involving acoustic guitars. It wasn’t long between legitimate laughs from well-crafted jokes or gags and the biggest laugh came at the very end.
I found the basics of the plot the weakest part of the movie. When Stereotypical Barbie finds that she’s having existential thoughts of death and gaining cellulite, she turns to Weird Barbie for help. She guides her to real-world Los Angeles to confront the child that is playing with her Barbie dolls too aggressively. Gosling’s Ken joins the road trip and soon they are continually getting arrested for not understanding the cultural norms of the real world (like that you have to pay for clothing).
This adventure takes Barbie and Ken to a high school where Barbie encounters Sasha, a mean girl who has outgrown her Barbie dolls years ago. Her Mattel-employed mother Gloria (America Ferrara) turns out to be the one who is causing the thoughts of death. The movie loses its bearings, I think, when Ken discovers the school library and checks out an armload of books about the patriarchy.
I’ve developed an allergy to movies that pull too much from social media discourse, and having Ken discover patriarchy and the “manosphere” felt like an ephemeral detour in a movie that is about one of most enduring pieces of pop culture, one that has thrived under multiple generations. There’s a particular scene where Ken tries to get a job that felt designed to be shared on Twitter/Facebook/Threads/BlueSky/Mastodon that I rolled my eyes at. I just find manufactured attempts to “go viral” to be “cringe.” Moreover, if you took a shot of tequila every time someone said “patriarchy,” well, that’s not something Andre the Giant’s liver could survive.
Barbie, first and foremost, is a crowd-pleaser. I never expected it to be the next Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (nor has anyone else), so my qualms about a path the plot took are my futile qualms. This is clearly Barbie’s world. We’re just living in it. Except Ken (all of them) and Ted Cruz. They’re living in Andrew Tate’s.
Barbie is now playing in theaters everywhere. Literally everywhere.