Barbie Review

Barbie makes her live-action movie debut with a self-titled film. It has become one of the most anticipated films of the summer of 2023.

Barbie can be a doctor, a writer, a president, and anything that can ever be imagined. The Barbies live in a perfect world where every day is the best day ever. However, Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) experiences some strange events like her falling from her roof and her feet becoming flat. Stereotypical Barbie goes to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) to find out why she’s having thoughts of death and becoming less of a Barbie. Stereotypical Barbie is told she needs to go to the real world and find the girl who had been playing with her. Stereotypical Barbie and Ken (Ryan Gosling) find themselves in the strange city of Los Angeles to find this girl.

Barbie is one of the most recognised toy brands. If someone were asked to name a female-ordinated toy Barbie would be the first to come to mind. The Barbie movie has been in development for years. Amy Schumer and Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody were attached to the film before Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig took on the project.

Barbie was a film that had a lot of talent attached. Robbie’s a big star and worked as a producer as well as an actress. Gerwig’s reputation as a director has been going from strength to strength due to her work on Ladybird and Little Women, and her partner, the indie filmmaker Noah Baumbach co-wrote the screenplay. There was an ensemble cast and Heyday Films, the production company behind the Harry Potter and Paddington films, helped produce the film. Added to this, Barbie had an incredible marketing campaign behind it.

The buzz for Barbie has been immense and it has translated to critical acclaim and box-office success. My screening of Barbie was full and the busiest I have seen at the cinema for a long while. Barbie offered an antidote to the depressing news we have been constantly bombarded with. It was a bright pink, self-aware comedy.

Meta narratives have become more popular in recent years. Rick and Morty was a prime example since it constantly makes references to the story tropes, and many recent films have brought in meta and self-aware elements. The Scream series has come back with a fifth and sixth movie that aimed to deconstruct horror films and franchise movies, The Matrix Resurrections had an inflated opinion of itself because of its references, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse aimed to destruct Spider-Man tropes. Even films like F9: The Fast Saga and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One had self-aware jokes about their series tropes.

Barbie was overtly self-referential. Mattel played a major role in the film and Barbie made fun of Mattel’s more questionable decisions. The character of Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) crushed Barbie by stating all the criticisms that have been levelled against Barbie. She was a symbol of unrealistic beauty expectations and brash commercialism. It was like a famous scene in Goldeneye where M stated all the criticisms of James Bond.

Barbie believed that she was aspirational and believed she had influenced the real world. Barbie and Ken were in for a big shock when they arrived in the real world and faced blatant levels of sexism. It led to a cross between good humour and biting commentary. Barbie was shocked that women weren’t in charge, not even at the company that created her. The villain’s plot they planned to do to Barbieland was hilarious yet damning. Barbie does take the idea of a patriarch in our world and the matriarch in Barbieland to its extreme so its point could be emphasised further.

Barbie is a product aimed at girls, so it’s hardly surprising that the film has a feminist slant. That didn’t stop reactionary YouTubers from complaining about the film being ‘anti-men propaganda,’ leading them to make long rant videos. They have exposed themselves to the hatemongers they are. Not all films have to be testosterone-filled action (and I say that as someone who enjoys action films). Films need to cater to all sorts of audiences. It must irk those types of ‘commentators’ that the biggest film of 2023 is a female-ordinated ‘woke’ film.

Barbie was also a film about character growth and self-discovery. Robbie was playing the stereotypical version of Barbie, the happy-go-lucky, fashionable girl that people would automatically think of. However, she develops a wider range of emotions and must discover there’s more to her than her assigned role. Many characters also had to find there was more to them than they had been assigned.

The cast for Barbie was stacked with talent. The actors filled their roles perfectly. Robbie was perfect as Barbie and Ryan Gosling and Kate McKinnon were great fun in their roles. Gosling was a delightful doofus and McKinnon lived up to her character’s name, ‘Weird Barbie.’ America Ferrera had the richest role as Gloria, a mother struggling to bond with her daughter and having to experience her own sadness. I was impressed by Ariana Greenblatt with her role in 65 and in Barbie she shows once again why she’s an actress to watch out for. The cast was so big that high-profile actors like Nicola Coughlan and Rob Brydon had extremely minor roles.

Barbie gave Gerwig a bigger canvas as a director and she used the opportunity. The production and costume designs were something to behold because they were bright, colourful, and inventive. Gerwig embraced the cartoon nature of Barbieland. It had a wonderful artificiality to it. The scene of Barbie and Ken travelling from Barbieland to the real world looked as if it came out of a Wes Anderson film.

Barbie was rated PG-13 in the US and 12A in the UK. Despite this, younger girls will be interested. Yet Barbie was not a film made for a younger audience, it’s for tweens, teens, and older.

Barbie was a film that managed to be a delightful comedy and an effective satire. It was the film fans wanted it to be.