Barbie

MOVIE #1,339 • 🍿🍿 • 02.01.24 I really didn’t like Barbie. I feel like stating that is enough and maybe I should move on with my life. It feels like having a strong opinion on this movie (one way or the other) is to make a political statement and I just don’t wanna do that. I already feel like by having written this review I’ve fallen into a trap. I have nothing against Greta Gerwig (I LOVED Lady Bird but found Little Women something of a harbinger in retrospect) but I think the film is fundamentally bad on multiple levels. I don’t think it’s “politics” are bad, in and of itself, though I definitely felt like I was missing the point of making them so overt. The word “patriarchy” is uttered at least a dozen times. This movie is about a child’s toy, though, so perhaps that was the intention? Can you purposely treat your audience like children and also make a statement geared for adults? What am I missing here?

The thing is that I don’t want or care to know the answer. There is another problem here that mostly has nothing to do with Gerwig or the picture she made: our society’s cultish devotion to all things product and I.P. is a horrible trend in the arts right now. 2023 also saw films about Tetris, Blackberry phones and the ‘invention’ of fucking Flaming Hot Cheetos (and those are just off the top of my head). I didn’t see any of those — maybe they’re legitimately good — but it’s impossible to ignore that this fodder, regardless of the scale or budget, has become consistent source material for the movies getting made now. Making these not feel like a 90-120+ minute commercial seems like an arduous task. The Mattel logo before this one started tells you everything. You know, the famous film production studio, MATTEL.

Putting aside all my philosophical issues, which I wholly admit were a hurdle I was never gonna be able to leap, there are a multitude of other issues. I didn’t love the look of Barbieland, though I realize that’s mostly been praised. The film is very wacky and filled with over-the-top performances. But the winking and nodding at the insanity of things only makes it worse. And why is the Mattel building within the (otherwise ‘normal’ looking) real world some kind of magic fantasyland. Cut to the green screen in America Ferrera's getaway car and I could not believe it looked that bad. Also, cool Chevy ad in your “definitely not a toy ad” movie.

Narratively it’s about what you’d expect for a film ‘based on’ a toy brand, but — alas — good enough to garner a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nom lol. What exactly was “adapted”? Copy from the back of the box? I can’t really harp on this because there’s no way it wasn’t always gonna be stupid but I found myself wishing they would’ve just leaned into the stupid: the wacky, fake, plastic side of things and made this a big in-your-face musical. I’m not a huge fan of that genre but the original song and dance numbers were easily the best parts. By the time we get to the big tearjerker ending I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough. Only a movie made by a toy conglomerate could be so ignorant to the role that capitalism and greed plays in the plight of women. But, yeah, let’s dismantle the patriarchy with our vibes and feels, sure. Men are scum, I won't deny. But never before have they been THIS irredeemably stupid. Every male character in every world at every turn is the dumbest, most braindead, barely functioning organism you’ve ever seen. Perhaps this was “adapted” from the S.C.U.M. Manifesto? What do I know? I’m just Ken, too. And this movie made $1.446 billion dollars.

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Barbie[a] is a 2023 American fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay she wrote with Noah Baumbach. Based on the eponymous fashion dolls by Mattel, it is the first live-action Barbie film after numerous computer-animated films and specials. The film stars Margot Robbie as the title character and Ryan Gosling as Ken, and follows the pair on a journey of self-discovery through both Barbieland and the real world following an existential crisis. The supporting cast includes America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell. It was released on July 9, 2023.