Written by: Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach
Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman
Rating: [4.5/5]
Assigning a singular purpose to a person seeks to define, but ultimately restricts the individual in question from breaking away from this mold and coming to their own form of realization. This allows individuals to make their own mark in the world the way they deem fit. We can easily understand this with humans but Barbie posits how this would look with a doll as this magnificent film not only reckons with the titular character’s existence, but also its impact on the very group it gets sold to.
Very content with the life she lives in her doll house, Barbie (Margot Robbie) begins to experience existential thoughts and feelings unlike anything ever before. This leads her to take a trip to the human world and find the source of what has caused this ailment for her where she begins to understand that her impact has morphed and has built a perception she cannot fully comprehend.
Doubting Greta Gerwig and her choices left my line of thinking given her first two solo-directorial efforts quickly cemented themselves as some of my favorite films of all-time. Her taking on a movie centered on the Barbie doll would have caused some worry if it were any other director simply because it’s getting funded by the owner of the brand, Mattel, and they only wish to make money and hope to use this film as a way to market the product and sell more of it. A cynical feeling that would make me wary of what chances or risks the film would take in actually telling a compelling story. However, as mentioned before, I no longer doubt Greta Gerwig and unsurprisingly she crafts something that certainly appeases the shareholder but delves into some heady topics and dissects this doll in such an invigorating manner. Some may still question the film and view it as nothing but a glorified commercial, but that discredits the incredible work done here to deliver far more.
As we dive into the world of Barbie, we get this large recreation of how these dolls live in their dollhouses and interact with each other. Much like the dollhouses played with by children, much of it works in an imaginary way where Barbie has a shower, pretends to take one, but does not have actual working water. It evokes this feeling of these dolls actually operating within their natural environment, which serves as a great credit to the production design work by Sarah Greenwood. Everything in the Barbie world looked spectacular in not only its detail but also its plastic artifice. It builds this little utopia that goes through its massive changes as Barbie begins to have these human emotions along with the journey she takes to the human world with Ken (Ryan Gosling).
Of the many surprising elements of this feature, the utilization of Ken and the journey he goes on from feeling like not enough and then learning about misogyny in the human world and how he could benefit for him contains so many wonderful layers. Yes, it has the comedy where Ken learns about how in the human world men carry much of the power, which goes against what transpires in Barbieland normally. Him learning about this and then bringing it back to his world makes for much of the conflict happening on the outside and even if some elements have a cartoonish feel to them, the way it ultimately concludes displays the depth of this overall narrative. It does not distill into a simple message about how misogyny negatively impacts women but also men as well with the expectations set upon them.
When speaking of the wonderful layers to this movie, Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, through their screenplay, weave in these themes and give Barbie & Ken each a strong and worthy conclusion. The journey Ken goes on in this feature would make for a great story on its own, but that very much serves as the B-plot, much like Ken’s place in the love held for these dolls. When something that does not take center stage get such a great resolution and thorough examination within a film trying to balance being both something Mattel feels would sell their dolls adequately and still deliver something this resolute, it displays the brilliance of the married duo Baumbach and Gerwig.
The main plot, unsurprisingly, centers on Barbie and how her journey to find the source of her sadness leads her to confront both the positive and negative impact of Barbie on those in the human world, particularly girls. Barbie encounters this with both Gloria (America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). The human world does operate as a utopia, and the impact she made gets questioned right before her. However, the most impactful element of Barbie’s self-actualization comes from the very idea of her existence. She begins to question why she exists and her true purpose where she refuses to let others define it and wants to stake her own claim to it. A truly powerful sentiment and one that gets such a rich exploration while still sprinkling silly story elements to still reach the desired four quadrants.
With each stop this film makes in its different worlds, it gets accompanied by a splendid soundtrack of memorable songs. From “Dance the Night” to “Barbie World” in the end credits, they add to the overall vibrancy of the story and help in delivering the overall message of the film. None does it quite like Billie Eilish’s “What was I Made for?” A song that comes in at the perfect time and underscores the most powerful moment in the entire film. As with many elements of the feature, plenty of care and intentionality came in crafting this soundtrack and it all comes at the benefit of the audience taking it all in.
Serving as the faces of this film, enough cannot be said about the work done by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in making many of the elements of this film work spectacularly well. Gosling, when given the opportunity to go full-on goofy, never fails and he steps in and delivers a pitch perfect performance as Ken. Harboring the necessary looks in presenting himself as an equal to Barbie but also hilarious in how he progresses as this character really just helps the film given his importance to the narrative. The film would not work as well without him, but Margot Robbie’s performance as the titular character continued to display her incredible rise as an actor. Also taking on the very silly elements of this character, she also delivers on the devastating emotion this doll feels throughout the narrative. We can feel these emotions flow through her from the moment she opens her eyes and compliments an older woman and when she asks her creator a very daring question. Robbie continues to astound in front of the screen and further impresses with her work as a producer in her effort in getting this film made and ensuring this production worked as well as it should.
A roaring success by not only hitting the four quadrants as demanded by these big studio films nowadays but delving into some powerful subjects, Barbie stunned me in its overall production. Really it should not have given Greta Gerwig continues to display her unending talent not only through her writing, but also as a director where she massively levels up the scale as compared to her previous works. With this feature she displays she can succeed with both smaller scale features and also one with the budget this film received but also the financial expectations placed upon it. Everything comes together brilliantly, making for a film that stands completely on its own in both entertaining the audience, but also asking them to think deeply about elements of life, which many certainly did not expect would occur in a story centered on this popular doll.
Films with Josh 
