Movie Review : Barbie (2023)
Greta Gerwig is, by far, not the first person to adapt Barbie. But she is the first person to adapt Barbie for other reasons than being paid by Mattel to do so. She wrote and directed a Barbie movie for the sake of writing and directing a Barbie movie. To challenge herself to make the most complex and engaging movie possible using a concept widely considered to be superficial and detrimental to young girls' self-esteem. Is Barbie successful? I would say so, even if the looming gaze of Uncle Mattel is never very far.
Barbie tells the story of… uh, Barbie (Margot Robbie), the prototypical blonde Barbie who lives a perfect existence in Barbie Land, where everything revolves around her. One day, Barbie mysteriously starts getting flat feet, cellulite and intrusive thoughts of death, which are ostracizing her from other Barbies around her. After consulting with weird Barbie, she is tasked with traveling to the real world and find out what the fuck’s wrong with her owner. Oh and she brings Ken (an inspired Ryan Gosling) along!
The Solipsism of a Perfect World
Let's be real: Barbie is a quirky, clever movie that's funny enough to appeal to anyone, but it's also meant for little girls. I don't think anyone over 13 years old is going to have life-changing moment with it and you know what? It's fine. If you had hopes that Barbie would rip society asunder (alright, I low-key entertained some), it's on you. While it mostly plays it safe and straightforward, the film has its moments where it has genuinely interesting thoughts about such an ubiquitous product. These are what I paid for.
My favourite thing about Barbie is the loss of her self-centered perfection. In the beginning of the movie, she had what theoretically everyone wants to have. A world without problems or inconvenience that revolved entirely around her desire to have a good time. She undergoes a crisis upon losing that, while Ken undergoes an existential revelation upon leaning patriarchy exists in the "real world". These two concurring elements eventually merge to grant Barbie something even better than Barbie Land: purpose.
I mean, yeah the feminist message is awesome and all. But it's a little on the nose for anyone who's been made aware of this issue over the last decade. What's truly great about it is how it frames struggle and imperfection as what makes life worth living. In many respects, Barbie undergoes the same psychological process a kid does when entering school and facing adversity for the first time, but there's something profoundly rewarding and empowering to see inanimate concepts face such a fucked up ordeal.
Ryan Gosling is great as Ken and all, but it gets obvious quite fast that this movie isn’t about him. The guy is just awesome at his job.
Where Barbie lags a little bit
Let's be real one more time: there's a lot of Mattel in this movie. Way too much of it. I'm not against companies protecting their intellectual properties in theory, but there's a strong "how to you do, fellow kids?" vibe about it. At some point, the company completely take over the narrative, introduces the fucking ghost of their owner Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman) and goes like: see? see? Barbie was invented by a WOMAN. So if you don't see feminist intent in her, it's on YOU…. and that fucking sucks to be told that.
Not that I don’t believe in personal responsibility or anything like that, but self-awareness is not a haven for corporations that want to continue being greedy. If your product made kids feel shitty about themselves for generations, own up to it. That's not what happened in Barbie. Not that I blame Greta Gerwig or Noah Baumbach for this corporate intrusion in their imaginary. They were courageous enough to deal with what must’ve been a paperwork fiasco. I can't imagine how shitty it must've been.
But don't fool yourself. Barbie is a very self-aware attempt by Mattel at modernizing their image and showing their can laugh at themselves. At least it has a strong component of that. Never in a million years I would've thought Will Ferrell felt like a stick up my ass, but here we are. I wish it wasn’t that, but I would lie to you by telling you otherwise. "Barbies are safe for consumption and very much a positive for little girls" is the endgame of this movie. The feminism is supposed to make you buy stuff.
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So, am I on the fence about Barbie? I believe it's a good film that features bold ideas when it comes to dealing with children. This isn’t the free thinking trailblazers the marketing lead to to believe, though. Go see your kid's favourite brand suffer an existential meltdown, own up to your responsibility as a parent and explain to your child why it's great that Barbie shits herself with dread and move on to more ambitious thing. I don't think Greta Gerwig will hate you for not turning your identity over to it.
