The projection of Barbie no longer begins, even the Warner Bros. logo is pink. The first scene is a kind of parody rather than homage to 2001, A Space Odyssey, with a stereotyped, blonde and beautiful Barbie like the Australian Margot Robbie. That will be the tone of Greta Gerwig's (Lady Bird) comedy, which will please those who played with – and collected – the Mattel doll.
The unattainable beauty standards that Mattel proposed with its Barbie doll, launched on the US market in 1959, have been strongly questioned – now, not before. They are said to have damaged self-esteem and fostered girls' eating disorders over time.
Of course, the Barbie that gives us this XXI century has a message of female empowerment. Barbie may or may not have an airhead, but the darts and fierce jokes make Ryan Gosling's Ken more pointable, when it comes to gender equality.
Ken (Ryan Gosling) sneaks into Barbie's (Margot Robbie) (pink) car, heading to the real world. WB Photos
The script co-written by the couple that make up in real life Noah Baumbach (the director of History of a marriage) and the also director Greta Gerwig point their machine gun of jokes and mockery everywhere, in a 360º arc. Starting with Mattel itself (the CEO is Will Ferrell) and continuing with the doll itself. You get to hear that her incursion set back the women's movement.
She doesn't notice it, because "Everyone thinks I'm cool and pretty." "Your glorified consumerism set feminism back 50 years," a schoolgirl-clad teenager tells the life-size Stereotypical Barbie who arrives in Los Angeles.
The Stereotypical Barbie on the fatal night, when she asks "Did you ever think about dying?"
But how could it be?
The Stereotypical Barbie wakes up every day as if she were Jim Carrey's Truman on The Truman Show. Her fantasy world (well, she lives in Barbie Land, an alternate reality) is multicolored, she lives with more Barbies from different professions, all smiling. Her mansion is plastic (she makes him drink and eat, but has nothing to drink or eat; the shower has no water, but the toast is perfect) and they are all surrounded by Kens, who are insecure and feel in the minority. The Ken dolls know that they depend on the Barbies to survive (that is, to be sold)...
Until one night, out of nowhere and in the middle of a dance party, the Stereotypical Barbie says, "Did you ever think about dying?" The music and the party are turned off.
There is not a single Barbie or a single Ken. Well, as it happens with dolls. Emma Mackey, Simu Liu, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, in the film.
The next morning his feet are no longer pointed when he gets out of bed, but they are flat, and he discovers that his perfect body begins to have cellulite.
What happened? What is the reason for its existential crisis?
Stereotyped Barbie goes to Barbie Rarita (Kate McKinnon), a broken doll, who gives her the answer. She opened a portal (solution for many movies this year) and must find the girl who plays with her. "They are intertwined so that they help each other," is the message about the relationship real girl, plastic doll.
The Ken of the beach (Ryan Gosling) can only be happy if Barbie looks at him. And it is clarified that patriarchy has not diminished. "We hide it better..."
The answer, then, is in the real world, where Barbie and Ken (Gosling's, not Simu Liu's, John Cena, Kingsley Ben-Adir or so many others) go – you'll see how – and reach Venice Beach.
In that real world, where the workers say misplaced compliments to the protagonist and pat her fret (see the consequence), Ken discovers that patriarchy can give a way out of his life (and that of the other Ken) in Barbie Land. Almost like a revolution.
Parody of "2001, a space odyssey": this is how the film starts.
There, from the middle of the screening, the film changes a little. Gerwig could have made a pastiche, a disaster or a hilarious comedy against play. Fortunately the result pulls more towards the latter.
If the production design is pop, plastic and bright, with hyper-saturated colors, social criticism also goes to the place of women in the real world. Mattel's Board of Directors doesn't have a single lady, and the only woman you see is a receptionist (America Ferrera). And it is clarified that it is not that patriarchy has diminished. "We hide it better."
The director nominated for three Oscars, including for the adapted screenplay of Little Women, hired Helen Miren as narrator. Because someone has to explain what's going on.
Barbie Land, a world of hyper-saturated colors, with pink as predominant.
Among the many cameos (John Cena, Dua Lipa), Reah Perlman (DeVito's wife, Matilda's mother) appears in an important role and there are discontinued dolls (Skipper, with her inflatable bust; Midge pregnant) and the puppy Tanner who leaves brown plastic pellets in his path.
The soundtrack includes songs by Billie Eilish, Lizzo and some hits from other eras. Because, of course, how many girls today play with Barbie? But there is a legion of fans in their thirties and up who are sure to run, nostalgic, to see Barbie.
Ah, for them and for no one else are the images that merge with the end credits. There is no post-credit scene, but there is no doubt that Barbie will have its sequel, and probably has to mutate in the real world, because what was squeezed in this film is no longer enough for a next one. And because we already know that girls can do anything they want. Here and in Barbie Land.
"Barbie"
Very good
Comedy. United States, 2023. Original title: "Barbie". 114', ATP L. From: Greta Gerwig. With: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt. Rooms: Hoyts Abasto, Cinemark Palermo, Cinépolis Recoleta and Avellaneda, Showcase Belgrano and Norcenter.
See also