GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.7/5)
Rated: PG
Directed by: Greta Gerwig
Written by: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
Produced by: Tom Ackerley, Robbie Brenner, David Heyman, Margot Robbie
Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Ana Cruz Kayne, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya, Dupa Lipa and Helen Mirren.
Because Barbie can be anything, women can be anything – right?
Set in a world where every day is the ‘best day ever,’ Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) wakes up every morning with a smile on her face and tiptoes.
It’s all hanging out with the girls, impromptu musical numbers, Ken (Ryan Gosling) obsessed and only alive in the gaze of Barbie and Barbies’ ruling the world and perfect sunny weather with nothing but blue skies day, after day, after day…
Until those irrepressible thoughts of death invade Stereotypical Barbie’s peace of mind.
It’s time to go visit. Weird Barbie, AKA Gymnast Barbie (Kate McKinnon).
An outcast in Barbie Land, Weird Barbie is forever doing the splits and keeps a dog that pooh’s hard plastic pellets (this is an actual creation where you lever the tail and the dog pooh’s – tee hee).
Gymnast Barbie knows what’s wrong because that’s how she became, weird. Once upon a time her owner, a young girl going through a punk phase, decided her Barbie should have her hair hacked and face… changed.
Stereotypical Barbie’s human must be doing something similar but instead of angry, this human’s world is falling apart and the emotions are starting to influence the Barbie.
The only way to stop the dark thoughts and get Barbie’s feet where they should be is to find the person who’s having the thoughts. It’s time to leave Barbie Land and enter the human world.
But Barbie? In the real world? It’s not going to end well.
‘It’s a repeat of Skipper in Key West,’ says CEO (Will Farrell) of Mattel (which for some reason still cracks me up).
It’s not long before Barbie is arrested and of course Ken’s along for the ride because he can’t be without Barbie.
And she might need someone who specialises in ‘Beach’.
Instead of the idealised matriarchal world they expected, Barbie and Ken soon realise that men are raised to a far higher level of power than in Barbie Land.
And Ken loves it. If only he was qualified to do anything more than stand on the ‘Beach’.
At its foundation, Barbie the movie is a feminist comedy – a strong description, but the script doesn’t pull punches as Barbie tackles the patriarchal society of the real world.
One of the all-male Mattel executives says, ‘I’m a man without power – does that make me a woman?’
So Barbie is faced with the idea of death and a world dominated by men.
The discussion of the awkward position of women in society is refreshing.
I get the, damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t scenario.
And I’ve never heard the difficulties declared in the way the real human woman character, Gloria (America Ferrera) who’s a Mattel employee and mum of teenage-full-of-angst Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), describes to Barbie: what it’s like to be a woman who can’t be fat, can’t be too skinny, has to say, ‘healthy’, while actually be skinny. Has be assertive but grateful. Be a sexy partner but caring like a mother but not a replacement for a mother. Has to have a career but not be selfish. Has to be successful but not so successful to make other people uncomfortable. And it goes on. And it all has the ring of truth about it.
It’s almost like the Barbies are the women born in the 50s who opened up the world in the 70s so women could become career women, and have babies – but in reality, there’s still a cage built of expectation.
Sometimes the message of the movie is a little dated like the idea of construction workers all being men. And the only-alive-when-you-look-at-me-Barbie, Ken is an unbalance in the other direction.
But there’s a fresh outlook here. That has genuinely funny moments.
The film was well-cast with Ryan Gosling as Ken helping keep it endearing as he too tries to understand his position in a patriarchal society versus a matriarchal society, then to find a place that understands the individual.
Then the message gets deeper as the idea of patriarch and the creation of Barbie is a construct created to intellectualise a confusing world; to try to control or understand, before we die.
As if I wasn’t already depressed in the middle of a Melbourne winter.
But then, it’s about girls and women, mothers and sisters and daughters all just being themselves.
So I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the message, with the added funny moments and a lasting feeling that tapped into a space unexpected – to feel good about myself and other women.
