"Barbie" review — pink and pastels reign supreme in delightful, intelligent comedy
“Do you guys ever think about dying?”
One of the most famous moments in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a match cut between a shot of a bone flying through the air and a spacecraft hurtling through space. 2001’s first scene is set during the earliest days of humanity’s existence as proto-humans begin to use tools for the first time, thanks to the appearance of a black rectangular monolith. Kubrick juxtaposes the shot of the bone and the spacecraft to quickly jump through all of humanity’s progress in a moment — from our most primitive and our most grandiose. It’s a very famous scene with its use of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra (specifically the “Sunrise” movement) becoming one of the most recognizable uses of music in film. In trying to take his viewers through all of human history in a moment, Kubrick, incidentally, neglected to include one major part of humanity’s advancement: the creation of the Barbie doll.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the latest from the director of Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), begins with an extended homage to Kubrick’s 2001 — Strauss and all. Except here, Gerwig replaces the bone with a baby doll and the monolith with a towering Margot Robbie decked out in Barbie’s black-and-white swimsuit from the original model. In this sequence, the voice of Helen Mirren, who narrates the film, explains that, for centuries, all dolls were baby dolls. They were fun, but could only lead to so many options for play. But when Barbie arrived, the history of the doll took a dramatic new course. Now, the options for what your dolls can do are truly endless. The creation of Barbie also just happened to open up a new pocket dimension called “Barbieland” where the personified ideas of Mattel’s many Barbie models — President Barbie, Scientist Barbie, Judge Barbie, Writer Barbie, Physicist Barbie, Mermaid Barbie — live, work, and play. In this magical land, all of the issues of feminism and inequality have been solved, creating a pink-coloured paradise of dollhouse logic.
The Barbie film has been stuck in development limbo since 2009 with various lead actresses, writers, and directors attached to the project at one point or another. Margot Robbie finally became attached to the project in 2019 and director Greta Gerwig, alongside her partner and co-writer Noah Baumbach, signed on in 2021. Two years later and Barbie has arrived in theatres in a tsunami of pink and pastels. The film is a marvellously good time. It rollicks with explosive, infectious energy as it pulls the viewer through dance sequences, beach offs, interdimensional camping, complicated mother-daughter relationships, and the horrors of flat feet. Lead actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling make for one of the best on-screen pairs this year thanks to their remarkable comedic chemistry. Gerwig deftly balances love for the original IP, with creative, self-aware jabs at Barbie’s more problematic real-life history. The film builds to a remarkably poignant finale about identity, purpose, and the weight of being human. It’s a lot more emotionally rewarding and thoughtful than a Barbie movie has any right to be, but if any filmmaker were to make a film like this, it would be Gerwig.
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| Barbie in Barbieland. Photo: Warner Bros. |
Let’s jump back to Barbieland for a second. Meet Stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie). She is your archetypal, blonde-haired Barbie doll, the sort of Barbie you think of when someone says “Imagine a Barbie doll.” For Barbie, every day is her best day ever. Her wake-ups are soundtracked Lizzo (whose two cuts of “Pink” make for some of the film’s best and most creatively timed jokes), she spends all day at the beach, she spends all night with her friends, and she gets to do it again and again. Meet Ken (played by Ryan Gosling). He’s just Ken. Ken is hopelessly in love with Barbie but is in a fierce rivalry with the other Kens for her affection. “Barbie has a great day every day,” to quote the narrator, “but Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.” Unfortunately for Ken, Barbie doesn’t spend much time actually thinking about him. She’s just too busy.
The production design of Barbieland is absolutely gorgeous with its heavy use of pink and artificial sets. It’s a toybox comes to life, with all of the questionable laws of physics that children use when playing with toys. This use of practical sets gives a level of tactility and practicality that makes this other world pop so well on camera. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto captures this fantastical world with wide-angle shots that let us take in its magic and charm. The blocking and camera movements are clever, adding so much playful energy to what the audience sees on screen.
But there’s something rotten in the state of Barbieland. One day, cracks begin to show in Barbie’s perfect reality: her feet become suddenly flat, her milk expires, she falls off her roof, and is suddenly filled with irrepressible thoughts of death. Barbie consults with Werid Barbie (played by Kate McKinnon) who tells her that she needs to visit the real world in order to fix the relationship between her doll counterpart and the girl who plays with her. It’s time for a cross-dimensional road trip!
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| Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in Barbie. Photo: Warner Bros. |
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are the forces that maintain Barbie’s excellent comedic energy. Robbie’s bright-eyed character is a joy to watch on screen as she journeys from clueless to suddenly self-aware. Robbie has been making a big name for herself since her debut 10 years ago in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Barbie is another shining example of why she’s one of the best, most charming actresses working today. By the end, Robbie conjures some true emotional gravitas as the film’s story takes Barbie into the depths of her own soul and reason for being. Gosling plays Ken to Robbie’s Barbie. Gosling and Robbie work so well together, with the two forming an effortless chemistry that compliments the other so well. Gosling plays a ditzy, himbo Ken who gets himself into many unfortunate scrapes. It’s exciting to see Gosling step into a role that plays to his (excellent) comedic sensibilities. Gosling has spent many years of his career building a strong, leading man persona. But it’s looser, funnier performances like this one as his work in other movies like The Nice Guys (2016) that really highlight the depths of Gosling’s abilities.
The many citizens of Barbieland — all modelled after real Barbie and Ken (and Allan and Midge) dolls — are made up of a regular “who’s who” of contemporary Hollywood talent. Issa Rae plays the commanding President Barbie, Hari Nef plays Dr. Barbie, and Alexandra Shipp plays Writer Barbie, to name a few. The highlight of the Barbies is Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie. The Kens are similarly populated with delightful characterizations. Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, and Scott Evans all take on variations of Ken with the highlight of the Ken-pany being Simu Liu who plays Ken, Ken’s suave and ultra-masculine primary rival. Dua Lipa and John Cena appear in a cameo as Mermaid Barbie and Ken. Michael Cera plays Allan, Ken’s best friend who fits in all his clothes. Cera’s usual awkward charm is on display as Barbieland’s one and only Allan, an outsider with the men of the city. But because the cast is so large, we are left wanting more of Barbieland by the time Barbie and Ken begin their voyage into the real world. Thankfully, we will see plenty more of the place before the credits roll.
Barbie and Ken’s trip to the real world is a fun, fish-out-of-water story. Barbie quickly meets Gloria (played by America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (played by Ariana Greenblatt), who own the real-world Barbie doll that Barbie is representative of. There’s a distinctively Platonic idea of Forms at work here with the Barbies of Barbieland being the templates of real-world Barbie dolls. Except here, the shadows of the Forms also impact the Forms themselves. Gloria is an employee of Mattel whose relationship with her daughter has only become more strained as Sasha has grown into a teenager. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt become one of the film’s key emotional cornerstones with their relationship becoming one of the main focuses of the narrative. Ferrera and Greenblatt are fantastic, serving as excellent, grounded foils to the ridiculous camp of the Barbie world and the heightened emotional state of Barbie herself.
As Barbie tries to repair her broken relationship, Ken discovers the key difference that separates the real world from Barbieland: here, men and horses (or so Ken thinks) rule the world. He’s introduced to a wonderful new idea: patriarchy. Soon, he’s leading back to Barbieland with a plan to take over the world.
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| Hari Nef, Alexandra Schipp, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, and Emma Mackey in Barbie. Photo: Warner Bros. |
This excursion to the real world feels no more than a slight diversion in the main plotline, occupying most of its second act but never overstaying its welcome. Soon, an angered Mattel, Inc. — led by Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel — is in pursuit of the escaped Barbie and Ken, which leads our characters back into another cross-dimensional trip. Back in Barbieland, the forces of Ken’s new form of horse-based patriarchy, the squad of suits unleashed by Mattel, the reluctantly stuck together Gloria and Sasha, and an existentially-haunted Barbie are about to clash in a quickly-paced, action-heavy third act that leads to a stunning finale with more than a few surprises to keep the stakes high, the plot moving, and the laughs quickly coming.
Gerwig handles the many moving parts of Barbie quite well. All of the film’s elements — its two worlds, massive ensemble, and multiple plotlines — come together in a clear, concise fashion in rather little time, even if some of the characters don’t quite get their due by the end. Whereas Barbie’s biggest current box office competition (Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning and Oppenheimer) both have runtimes of over 2-and-a-half hours, it’s refreshing to see a movie that is able to pack so much story into under 2 hours. The concussion of the film is particularly spectacular, with Barbie coming to terms with the nature of her world and the real world and her desire to find her purpose in life. Audience members surprised by Barbie’s emotional depths and maturity are clearly unaware of Gerwig’s talents as a filmmaker — as already demonstrated with her intimate coming-of-age dramedy Lady Bird and her adaptation of Little Women, two of the best films of the last decade — and Barbie is just another excellent piece in her early work as a film director.
Barbie is a very fun, delightful comedy with a score of delightful performances, playful filmmaking, and surprises to entertain endlessly all helmed by a talented director. With the film already shaping up to be a sizable success, it gives one hope that we might be treated to more studio comedies with this level of imagination, depth, and care. Gerwig’s narrative is deeply feminist and philosophical without ever losing its comedy and is incredibly honest while also being primarily hopeful. While Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” which does make an appearance here, would cast the doll as rather of a ditz, Barbie makes the case that she can be so much more than that. Maybe Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie deserves a place beside all of the rest.
Barbie is now playing in theatres everywhere.
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