Movie Review: 'Barbie'

Margot’s a Barbie girl, in her Barbie film.Made by Greta, which makes it betterthan you’d ever guess. You’d think it’d be a mess.But it’s not drastic, it’s fantastic.Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) is living the dream. Everything is perfect, with every day the same as the last. She has a boyfriend, Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling), who exists only to receive attention from her. Barbieland is completely run by Barbies, and life feels like nothing can go wrong. Until Barbie begins having thoughts about mortality.She goes to visit Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who tells Barbie that these thoughts are being caused by the girl playing with her in the Real World, and she needs to go there and confront said girl to resolve these problems. Though Barbie wants to do this by herself, Ken tags along, anyway.They find the Real World is way different than they expected. Barbie connects with Gloria (America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblat) who help her escape from the executives from Mattel, led by their CEO (Will Ferrell). Ken, meanwhile, discovers revelations of his own that blow his mind and might spell the end of Barbieland.I don’t know about you, but when I heard Greta Gerwig was set to direct a live-action Barbie movie, my ears pricked up and my eyebrow raised. I wasn’t sure how to take the news that the director of Lady Bird and Little Women, the terrific actress of such films as Frances Ha and Damsels in Distress, was taking on something so vapid as Barbie. Yet, I was intrigued.Turns out Gerwig was the perfect choice. The script, co-written with her partner Noah Baumbach (a great filmmaker in his own right), somehow finds a way to both celebrate the iconic doll and her makers, while also skewering the heck out them both.I would never in a million years have put money down on Mattel allowing a film like this to be made about their main moneymaker. Barbie takes everything kids love about the toyline and every criticism it has faced through the years, then mashes them together to create a perfect commentary on the inequality of the sexes.This does mean the film has a bit of a split personality. On the surface, sure, it’s a family film. Take your kids to see the “doll movie.” Though, once we reach the Real World—which is only about a half hour into the two-hour runtime—things get pretty existentialist. The comedy derived from most of the situations that play out for the duration will definitely fly over your children’s heads. Yet, the kids at my screening seemed to enjoy it, so who am I to say what kids will or won’t like. I mean, as a kid my parents took me to see Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits and I loved that, only to understand more of the humor once I was older.Despite that miniscule misgiving, the film is hilarious. Robbie and Gosling give standout performances, expertly nailing their characters’ arcs as they go from utter airheadedness to analytical self-awareness. While the Real World operates like…well…the real world, the world inside the walls of the Mattel corporate offices is more akin to Brazil filtered through a Three Stooges short.Beginning life as a conceptual head-scratcher, Barbie ended up being one of the year’s best surprise gems.Post-Credit Lowdown:During the beginning of the credits you get to see old ads for the various styles of Barbies seen in the movie, but after that there's nothing else.