OSCARS 2024: Barbie (2023)

In 2009, it was announced that Mattel was developing a film based on their world-famous Barbie doll. This was part of a wave of Hollywood films in the wake of Michael Bay's “Transformers,” trying to develop franchises out of beloved toy brands. Most of these projects that came out flopped and many more died on the vine. Yet “Barbie” stuck around. Versions of the film starring Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway never manifested. Through it all, nobody was much excited for a movie based on the plastic blonde. Until the latest star on the project, Margot Robbie, got indie darling Greta Gerwig signed on to direct. As more casting and information came out, people became more excited about this “Barbie” movie. By the time it released last summer, it was among the most anticipated films of the year. The project continued to defy the odds by becoming the biggest hit of the year, well reviewed, and is now nominated for multiple Academy Awards. 

Gerwig's film begins in Barbie Land, the pink, pastel alternate reality populated by Mattel's playthings. Multiple versions of the doll rule the land while, multiple versions of her male counterpart Ken serve as studly, vacant-minded second class citizens. Life seems ideal in Barbie Land... Except for when the blondest, most stereotypical Barbie begins to have unavoidable thoughts of death. Once her feet are no longer pointy and her thighs get cellulite, she visits the so-called Weird Barbie. She's informed that the child playing with her in the Real World must be having this sadness and that Barbie must travel to the mortal realm to resolve this issue. The neediest, beach-iest Ken accompanies her as she discovers the real world is a lot more complicated. She also meets Sasha, a grumpy tweener, and her mother Gloria, who happens to work for Mattel as a Barbie designer. Meanwhile, Ken discovers the concept of patriarchy brings it back to Barbie Land, flipping the idyllic, pink world on its head.

As a comedy, “Barbie” operates in two separate modes, clearly divided along its two worlds. The first is a highly campy homage to the history of the “Barbie” product line. The film takes great delight in blowing up the various “Barbie” play-sets, vehicles, accessories, and accessories into life-sized props and sets. The film highlights several bizarre artifacts from “Barbie” history, like some of the more regrettable variations on the dolls and forgotten characters like Midge, Allen (played by Michael Cera at his most hilariously deadpan), and a pooping dog. The physics of this world operate under a cartoon, play-time logic. Most prominently, the playthings/people within this world act in an exaggerated manner you'd expect from a kid on a sugar high. When presented with Barbie's flat feet, people scream in overblown horror. The Kens posture against each other in a juvenile manner, a little girl's version of manly squabbles. It's a bit grating, especially in the early scenes, but I also have to commend the movie for its creative embracing of this artificial world and all that entails.

If “Barbie” had devoted itself totally to this Barbie Land, it probably would've been a pretty amusing – if slightly insufferable – motion picture. However, this is also a fish-out-of-water film that transports Barbie and Ken into our real world. Contrasting the naïve yet weirdly perspective Barbie with the harsh realities of our reality produces the biggest laughs in the film. Such as her denial of Sasha's claim that she's a fascist, the joke that easily got the largest reaction out of me. Or the running gag of her and Ken's inability to understand paying for things. These scenes capitalize on “Barbie's” biggest positive. Margot Robbie's considerable charm and excellent comedic timing makes this plastic doll a personable, living thing that is repeatedly baffled by everything that's happen with moments of hilarious insight. This peaks during an amusing sight gag, once Robbie's Barbie succumbs to the depression she feels. 

Probably the smartest thing Gerwig did while constructing “Barbie” is embracing the doll's complicated relationship with feminism. The utopian Barbie Land acknowledges that “Barbie,” as an ideal, presents a perfected version of femininity that can accomplish anything. This contrasts roughly with the real world conception of the doll, as a fetishized sexual object. If Gerwig had left it at that, I think “Barbie” would be a much stronger film. Instead, the script gets increasingly didactic as it goes along. There's phony feeling platitudes, like Barbie telling an old woman that she's beautiful. This tendency peaks during America Ferrera's monologue about the contradictory nature of being a woman, a flat laying down of the movie's themes that Ferrera does admittedly deliver in a fiery manner. After that, “Barbie” ladles it on, growing more sentimental as it heads into an overlong epilogue. 

“Barbie's” feminist messaging being so blunt might be why the movie ends up getting stolen by Ryan Gosling's Ken. Gosling strikes the perfect amount of brainlessness, playing a character who becomes a malicious antagonist almost by accident, because he's just too dumb to know any better. Maybe that's because Gosling always has that sad puppy dog glare in his eyes, even during Ken's most sexist moments. Gosling also has a stunning comedic timing, with a weirdo energy that manages to make even normal lines into huge laughs. The go-for-broke quality Gosling brings to Ken is one hundred perfect on display during the “I'm Just Ken” musical number, a moment of such perfectly joyous silliness that it immediately became one of my favorite moment in movies last year. The musical number is so brilliantly pulled off that everything that follows feels unnecessary. 

If “Barbie” trusted its own message more, and was willing to convey its idea to its audience with more subtly, it would be a stronger, funnier film. (This weakness is also evident in the toothless satire directed at the Mattel corporation.) On the other hand, the fact that a movie made to sell dolls was this fresh, amusing, and pointed in the first place is nothing short of a miracle. It does have some insightful things to say about femininity, masculinity, and their roles in the world while also being kind of delightfully weird. At least by the standards of 145 million dollar kids movies. Robbie and Gosling are fantastic and their performances go a long way to making the movie as enjoyable as it is. If studios want to give I.P. projects like this to auteurs like Gerwig more often, that can only be a net-gain for the film world. [7/10]