Barbie is a feminist icon. Barbie promotes prejudicial ideas about female beauty. Barbie is inspiring, telling girls they can be anything they want. Barbie is a capitalist fantasy. The popular Mattel doll is full of contradictions and they all have a grain of truth. If this had been a run-of-the-mill film, I would have tried to avoid all those complexities. same as other based on toys. But in this review we will see that the Barbie movie is anything but normal.
Of course, this is not the first film about this doll. Mattel has released more than forty animated stories that turned Barbie and her friends into princesses, fairies, ballerinas and even swordsmen. They are an expansion of the idea that “it can be anything” and many girls have grown fond of them. The work that reached theaters could not be more different. Instead of being played by a doctor, spy or lifeguard Barbie, the protagonist is literally “the idea” of a stereotypical Barbie.
Barbie has an absolutely perfect life in Barbieland with the other barbies and their Ken. Everything is parties, joy and fun until one day her thoughts turn dark, her feet become flat and she starts getting cellulite. Her only solution is to travel to the real world and find the girl who plays with her to find out what is going on. But what she finds there in Ken’s company may change this perfect pink land forever.
With this metamodern plot, director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women) and her co-writer Noah Baumbach (Background Noise, Marriage Story) explore a host of complex topics: patriarchy, feminism, existential crises, and even the human condition. The surprising thing is that they do it without ever abandoning the humor, the absurdist tone or the love/hate they feel towards the doll. It’s a true deconstruction of the Barbie deconstruction.
But before I talk about its more complicated elements, I want to celebrate how good this movie looks on a production design level. The world full of pink, fuchsia and pastel colors they created is impressive and reflects well the artificial perfection of the world of Barbie dolls.. The way he uses photography and color to differentiate Barbieland from the real world works very well, as does the subtle way that the main character Barbie changes physically throughout the film, appearing less and less perfect and more human as she experiences reality.
I don’t need to tell you how well Margot Robbie fits this role, as that’s clear from the first time we saw her in the trailers. This woman is not only very beautiful, but supremely talented. She really made me believe that she is a person experiencing emotions like sadness and anxiety for the first time. But the real revelation is Ryan Gosling’s Ken. He is a ‘himbo’ who lives depending on her girlfriend and he doesn’t know what to do when he’s not with her. His journey of self-discovery takes a radically different turn than Barbie’s, and it’s their clash that makes this movie so special.
While the film’s plot uses Barbie to explore the contradictions and frustrations of female life, Ken is a glimpse into a fragile masculinity that tries to cling to whatever tells it “what a real man should be like.”. He is an absolutely fascinating character. He reflects the doubts of many males today, but I fear that some of them will get the wrong lessons from this character because the movie makes a mistake: it takes the resolution of him as a joke.
While exploring and criticizing the patriarchy, the Barbie movie admits that its pink-perfect world makes some of the same mistakes in objectifying the Kens, turning them into little more than props. It is clear that she wants to make a parallel with the situation of women when they had not won rights in many societies. The problem is that she does it from the parody angle and doesn’t take it seriously. That gives rise to many who can interpret that he considers men as second-class people.
I’m also not satisfied with what he does with the Mattel board of directors. I love that works like this make fun of CEOs and senior managers of companies as utter incompetent buffoons. But his clumsiness is so over the top that it hurts the tone of the movie. They seem to belong to a completely different story.
I can also criticize that By wanting to cover so many important topics, the film does not delve into many of them. For example, the relationship between Gloria (America Ferrara) and her daughter Sasha seems to be inspired by Lady Bird, one of director Greta Gerwig’s earlier films. But this is resolved too easily and almost anecdotally. Gloria’s feminist monologue about the contradictions of being a woman reminded me a lot of Jo’s in Little Women. But as painfully real as it is, she has less strength.
All those criticisms must be taken into account because Barbie is a very ambitious movie, but I want this review to make it clear that I loved this film and that I consider that it fulfills almost everything that is proposed. It is a funny, emotional and extremely human film.. He has wonderful performances and unparalleled behind-the-scenes talent that accomplished something no one thought possible: make a good movie about the most famous doll of all time.
That is my vision as a critic, but I am also a man who likes it or not has benefited a lot from the patriarchy. It is literally impossible for me to see this film through the eyes of the audience it is truly intended for. That is why I want to invite you to look for reviews of the Barbie movie made by women. The vision of those who grew up playing with these dolls, being inspired by them or even repudiating the ideal of beauty they represent is much more important than mine.
