Life in plastic, it’s fantastic… until it isn’t.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a candy-coated glitter bomb that gradually sheds its hot pink layers, revealing boldly ambitious and utterly surprising moments that no one really expects. This Barbie is so brave to “go there” go there, and whatever preconceived notion you had prior to watching this movie – this isn’t that. It manages to surprise you with a seamless commentary on sociopolitics, a woman’s pursuit of agency reclamation, and what she has to do to navigate the world’s patriarchal maze.
The cast’s commitment was unparalleled. Despite their outlandish plastic world, lavish production design, and bonkers ideologies, they never felt like caricatures, which is the great irony in a doll movie. They were campy but never cartoonish as if their universe really existed. I believed in everything they believed in, and nothing that they did felt disingenuous.
Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie shines as hard as newly polished plastic. She brought the nuances of intellect, compassion, and charm to a role that could have easily been eaten by this machine-like prototype. Yet, she held onto the steering wheel and claimed total autonomy, creating this luminous performance that lifted the juggernaut production to greater heights.
This is peak Ryan Gosling comedy. Everything he did was so serious in his mind that nothing came off as phony, silly, or ridiculous. Without a doubt, one of his career-best performances, showcasing the bravado performer that he truly is.
And while it carries a load of hefty political content, it manages to treat every theme as light, heartfelt, and funny as they are without going all high-brow. Huge thanks to its impeccable self-awareness, it knew what it was trying to assert and who they were trying to assert for.
Some of its extremist views on equality irked me a bit, but Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach managed to turn it around with their “recentering” plot arc, eventually showing that coexistence is possible without hostility and needless battles.
In a nutshell, Barbie’s entrance to 2023’s cultural zeitgeist is 100% warranted. This is a movie I never thought I needed to happen – and I’m so glad it did.
