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BARBIE
Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Simu Liu, Michael Cera, Hari Nef, Emma Mackey, Nicola Coughlan, Dua Lipa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, the voice of Helen Mirren MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:54 Release Date: 7/21/23 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 20, 2023 Barbie, the popular and long-selling doll, could be anyone and anything, and to some extent, that means any woman could be like Barbie. That was pretty much the underlying idea of the doll upon its release in 1959, even if the first Barbie appeared as a fashion model in a swimsuit. Four years later, another version of the doll was a business executive, although a different variation of Barbie released in the same year was a cheerleader. She came a long way in a very short period of time, only to maybe take a step or two back in an even shorter amount of it. The existence of Barbie, then, is a long-running contradiction. Barbie, a live-action film about one of the dolls having an existential crisis, is more than happy to embrace the toy's contradictory nature. A similar feeling comes from watching co-writer/director Greta Gerwig's film. One knows it's an advertisement meant to sell dolls, accessories, vehicles, and playsets to girls and women—and anyone else, for that matter, who might be interested in them—of all ages. The film never feels like one, though, even if Mattel, the company that makes the toys, gets a logo as elaborate as the studio behind the film and gets plenty of screen time within the story, too. That the toy company signed off on Gerwig and co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach's plot, which is sometimes critical of the doll and intrinsically less-than-favorable about the people selling it, is a bit of a surprise, but if one looks at the film as a piece of marketing, it's a good reminder that there really is no such thing as bad advertising. This film is, thankfully and refreshingly, a lot more than a feature-length ad, though. It has plenty of ideas bursting from its fairly simple story, which sees one Barbie (Margot Robbie, perfectly cast for both her appearance, which the film itself even acknowledges as a bit of a problem for part of the message it wants to convey, and the unexpected depth she brings to the role) making her way to the real world. This most-stereotypical version of the doll might suffer from some uncertainty about herself and her place in the world while living in an idealized world populated and run by her fellow dolls, but wait until she sees what reality is like. That's the main joke here, in a story filled with plenty of comedy, too. We first meet Barbie—one of about a dozen who have lines and maybe of a few dozen whom we actually see in the film—in Barbie Land, which is both a realm of imagination created by anyone who plays with the toys and a very real place. Don't think about that too much, because the screenplay, which opens with an overt homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey (with the swimsuit-wearing Barbie serving as the mystical monolith that awakens little girls' sense of belief in themselves), certainly doesn't. It doesn't need to, being a blatant satire that borders the line of the surreal. Anyway, this Barbie lives among many others, all of them living their best lives in every career imaginable and in days that become a strict routine. They work or, like this Barbie, just sort of happily exist, with a song pointing out just how perfect and pink everything is in this place (The cinematography, by Rodrigo Prieto, and design keep the world's aesthetic just shy of garish), and party together every night. On this particular night, our Barbie asks if any of her fellow dolls has ever thought about dying. That sets her on a path to travel to the real world, namely Los Angeles, and figure out what has happened to the girl playing with her there. That leads to a touching story about a woman named Gloria (America Ferrera), who works as an administrative assistant for an entirely male corporate administration at Mattel, and her pre-teen daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who used to play with this Barbie but now sees the doll as the cause and representation of so many social and psychological ills for women. Barbie gets a sense of that almost immediately upon entering the real world, as men ogle, catcall, and even physically assault her before she even finds Sasha. Eventually, Mattel's CEO (Will Ferrell) enlists his fellow executives to track down Barbie and put her back in her place in an oversized box. The other pointedly jokey through line involves this Barbie's Ken (a gregariously dopey Ryan Gosling, clearly having a blast), who exists in Barbie Land, along with his fellow Kens, to essentially be an accessory—pining for his Barbie but always ending up as nothing more than barely good friends with her. Upon entering the real world, this Ken learns about the notion of the patriarchy and decides that he very much likes the idea of having control over every aspect of society. That turns Barbie Land into a very different place, along with all of the Barbies within it. Obviously, Gerwig doesn't have many answers to the slew of issues Barbie encounters along the way, although a couple of encounters with her creator (played by Rhea Perlman) offer a perspective that feels like a fine—if simple and individualistic—message. That's mostly beside the point, though, since the aims of Barbie are to see the toy, the fantasy (unfortunately) of what Barbie Land represents, and the real world she enters—and that she has shaped to some degree—as a playground for ideas and broad satire. In that regard, the film is quite a bit of intelligent fun. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for suggestive references and brief language)
