It seemed like a mission impossible: In an age of rising anti-consumerism and increasingly irrelevant gender, Greta Gerwig signed on to make what many saw as a film. Superficial and regressive feature film, if not downright sexist, consumer product. Could our patron saint of women in modern cinema pull off this tightrope walk?
Barbie is well aware of these criticisms – and it makes good use of them, especially in its racy first act. The jokes and cameos come fast and furious, with a lot of cheekiness and a lot of wink. “What started as a lady in a bathing suit turned into the idea that women can be anything,” narrator Helen Mirren intones in the film’s Kubrick-inspired prologue, as the camera examines decades of different Barbie dolls by profession and color. “Because of Barbie, all the problems of feminism are solved!”
The rosy splendor of the ever-optimistic Barbieland that opens the film is a delight to watch, courtesy of culture-bound Ken (Ryan ) Gosling, Never Been Funnier)’s Barbie’s Dreamhouse alley and stereotypical Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) matching outfit. But all is not well in the pink land. Suddenly the thought of death came to Barbie’s mind. Her perpetually arched feet flattened, and some cellulite developed on her thighs. There’s a rift between Barbie’s world and the real world, and Barbie must travel to the real world to fix it, announced by an eerie, disheveled, akimbo Barbie (Kate McKinnon). (Yes, Barbie is another alternate reality blockbuster.)
Most of the rest is smooth sailing like riding a Barbie As enjoyable as a doll’s engineless convertible. However, a handful of moments are drained by gratuitous antics, unnecessary plot points and jokes that end up bogging down the buzz. The cast may also be too full, leaving some characters frustratingly overlooked (more Jamie Demetrio, please).
The biggest shock and spoiler might be the revelation that Barbie is actually a treatise on gender inequality. However, it is primarily a variant of second-wave feminism (Barbies are baby boomers, after all, first hitting shelves at 1959), about women in existing public and private A broad system of ideas by which domains gain power, sometimes excluding men entirely. (Sorry, Kens, no guys are allowed at the nightly girls’ nights at Barbieland or Barbie Supreme.) America Ferrera is a busy but loving mother in the real world who ends up with the doll We communicate, and she’s tasked with tackling an uplifting yet impassioned story. A bit of a sweeping presentation, listing the thorny dilemmas women face in today’s society, in case you missed this message. A spoonful of Barbie makes feminism go down.
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