This must be one of the most unusual ideas ever pitched to a Hollywood film studio.
I’d love to have been a bug on the wall during that concept meeting.
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| Total catastrophe! Barbie (Margot Robbie, center) is dismayed to discover that her perfectly arched feet have become flat. Her fellow Barbies — from left, Ana Cruz Kayne, Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and Emma Mackey — are similarly horrified. |
It’s also quite funny.
And pink. Very, very pink.
Director/co-scripter Greta Gerwig — along with writing partner Noah Baumbach — have concocted an immersive “Barbie experience” that playfully honors the iconic Mattel doll’s 64-year legacy, while contrasting her idealized realm with the harsher truths of our real world.
Although such progressive thoughts certainly weren’t contemplated when the first Barbie hit store shelves on March 9, 1959 — your choice of blonde or brunette — Mattel soon employed the doll as a subtle means of girl empowerment. Barbie could be anything: a doctor, lawyer or scientist; tennis champ or ace baseball player; astronaut, Supreme Court justice or even president of the United States.
(Granted, this was primarily marketing savvy; the actual goal was to make money. But if a little idealism rubbed off along the way, so much the better.)
Thus — following a hilarious prologue that lampoons the opening sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — we meet pert, perky “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), as she wakens to enjoy another in an impossibly long line of perfect days.
Identically perfect days.
She rises, greets the Barbies in adjacent dream houses, showers beneath invisible water, enjoys breakfast while drinking invisible milk, and opens her magic wardrobe to get her outfit for the day: a bit of spin, and poof, it’s on her body. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is as amazing and colorfully inventive as Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. (Who knew pink came in so many shades?)
Since Barbie’s dream house has no stairs, and is open at the front, she merely steps off the edge and floats to the ground below. (Newton’s laws don’t exist in Barbie Land, nor does wind, gravity or anything else that might interfere with this realm’s pink perfection.)
All of Barbie’s friends are Barbie, her primary BFFs played by Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne and Issa Rae; the latter is president of Barbie Land.
This realm’s male contingent is an equally large cluster of Kens, who exist solely to validate the awesomeness of their respective Barbies. Ryan Gosling handles the primary Ken, who chafes because — deep down — he’s not entirely happy about existing solely within the warmth of Barbie’s gaze. He has a job — simply “beach” — and while he’s not sure what that is, he wants to be really good at it. To impress Barbie.
At which point, we begin to sense a problem in this paradise. The Kens have no dream homes; there’s no sense of where they are, or what they do, when the Barbies aren’t around.
Worse yet, Stereotypical Barbie begins to develop anxiety. Concerns about mortality. Other stuff.
Because this “meddles with the primal forces of nature” — to quote Ned Beatty’s great speech from 1976’s Network — Barbie must venture through the interdimensional portal that connects Barbie Land with our real world, in order to find her actual “owner” … who somehow is screwing things up.
Barbie’s arrival does not go well.
Contrary to her idealized expectations, women do not occupy the seats of power, nor do they have clear pathways to prestigious careers. Worse yet, young girls such as Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) disdain every contemptible, cynical and bogus aspect of the entire doll line.
(Barbed references to the current mess in our real world are purely intentional.)
Sasha is the rebellious daughter of Gloria (America Ferrera), a low rung on Mattel’s corporate ladder — where the all-male board room is ruled by its sexist CEO (Will Ferrell) — whose dreams of advancement were squashed long ago. And, of late, Gloria’s misery has, um, leaked into Barbie Land.
Worse yet, Ken — who has tagged along with Barbie, to bask in her magnificence — is confronted by an entirely new notion in this real world: patriarchy.
Which he embraces with considerable enthusiasm.
What follows turns chaotic … while remaining shrewdly, brilliantly critical of what it means to be a woman in today’s United State. This film’s sheer-genius high point comes during Gloria’s ferocious unpacking of this imbalance: a bravura bit of all-stops-out acting blended with savagely astute writing, guaranteed to earn Oscar nods for Ferrera, Gerwig and Baumbach.
It’s a female primal scream more than a century in the making … and a reminder that Gerwig’s previous film was 2019’s similarly savvy adaptation of Little Women.
Ferrera’s superb work notwithstanding, this film would collapse without Robbie’s equally fine performance. Her Barbie is impressively nuanced: at first blush merely chirpy and vacuous, but soon plagued with doubt and existential angst. Robbie persuasively handles this transition, as Barbie’s sense of self is shattered by real-world awareness that her perfection is, well, far less than perfect.
(Cue a mordant aside by narrator Helen Mirren, whose ongoing commentary is delightfully piquant.)
Gosling is initially as wooden as Ken’s personality, his line readings deliberately flat and lifeless. Even so, we see unhappiness in his gaze, dissatisfaction in his half-smile. He comes alive when Ken transitions to the real world; Gosling’s delight and sudden enthusiasm are evident as Ken marvels at everything. Particularly horses.
Gosling’s comedic side also emerges, as Ken next embraces … chauvinism.
Kate McKinnon is a hoot as “Weird Barbie,” the embodiment of dolls “enhanced” and even mutilated by real-world little girls armed with magic markers, scissors and other items of destruction. McKinnon has fun with this astute character, who’s more self-aware than the other Barbies.
Simu Liu’s Ken exudes hyper-competitive masculinity as Gosling-Ken’s primary foil.
Michael Cera is somewhat mysterious as Barbie Land’s sole Allan: a doll introduced in 1964 as “Ken’s buddy,” but who — in this saga — has become a forlorn, marginalized loner, always on the periphery.
Rhea Perlman pops up in a brief, but crucial, supporting role.
Not quite everything works as well as Gerwig and Baumbach intended. Ferrell and his Mattel board room cronies serve an important purpose in our real world, but their subsequent jaunt to Barbie Land is inane (at which point Ferrell also becomes irritating). And while many of this musical fantasy’s original songs are clever and insightful — and well performed — this element grows tiresome in the third act, which includes at least one lavish production number too many.
Those missteps slow the film’s momentum, but not its overall message. Barbie absolutely deserves the critical praise and public acceptance that have turned it into a box-office sensation. Candy-colored entertainment rarely is this wise and skillfully cunning.
All involved deserve to be very, very pleased.
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