Official Trailer:
What kind of story one can build with a doll? Toys crossover to the real world and writers toyed with ideas of friendship, family, separation, and existential crisis in Toy Story series. Then we have The Truman Show where the hero lives in a made-up fantasy world till the reality hits him. Writers of Barbie use the similar premise and deliver a well-made satirical ride that is entertaining, funny, and questions the real-world setup. Witty dialogues work most of the time except when it gets into in-your-face lecture mode.
Barbie is a visual feast with stunning set designs, costumes, dazzling colors, and impressive detailing. Movie recreates many Barbies and Kens from the Mattel line-up including the discontinued ones (and uses it to take swings at Mattel). From the get-go, Barbieland pulls you in with its alternate reality where women are at the helm (president, supreme court judges, doctors, construction workers, …). The homage to 2001: Space Odyssey opening sequence is brilliant, gives a preview to the intent of the movie. The existential crisis forces the Stereotypical Barbie to go to the real world and how that leads to Gloria, the mother of Sasha is written well and staged beautifully. Ken gets attracted by real world patriarchy and infects Barbieland with it. All Kens join hands, call it Kenough is Kenough, take control, Barbieland gets renamed to Kenland and they are on their way to change the Constitution. Did Stereotypical Barbie able to save the Barbieland? What about Kens’ place in Barbieland? That forms the rest of the story.
The director, Greta Gerwig, never misses an opportunity to take a crack at real world patriarchy and lip service to women’s liberty. Mattel’s top floor conference room filled with all men, gender neutral bathroom, I’m a man with no power, does that make me a woman?, We’re actually doing patriarchy very well … we’re just better at hiding it. Greta Gerwig in her desire to show many sides of patriarchy goes overboard and beyond a point we get saturated. Since Greta doesn’t stay long enough on any issue, there is lack of depth. Gloria’s lengthy monologue comes across as a lecture. The key points from the lecture could have been written as scenes and staged, for example as issues Gloria faces at her workplace that leads her to picture Depressed Barbie with existential issues of death and cellulite. That would have given Gloria a better character arc, a better cinema, and a monologue following that would have been more impactful. To give Greta credit the speech is insightful, and emotional (and does get the Barbies out of their daze) though. To compensate for the long monologue, we get the payoff with hilarious mansplaining sequence where Barbies bait Kens with The Godfather, Photoshop, music. Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, are perfect as Stereotype Barbie and Ken. All the supporting cast, Will Ferrell, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Rhea Perlman, have given their best.
Similar to 2001: Space Odyssey climax, Barbie meets her creator, Ruth Handler (Ruth named the doll after her daughter Barbara – Google says). Now that she is out of the box, Barbie wants guidance from her creator on where she goes from here? Ruth shares her personal story to Barbie and says Humans have only one ending. Ideas live forever. Barbie has a choice, live in the Barbieland as an idea or become a human in real world and do the imagining. And the end is subversive connecting I want to see the gynecologist to the earlier genitals quip. Now Barbie can never get back in the box!!