Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie
“BARBIE” My rating: B (Theaters)
114 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
I’m pretty late to the Barbie party, having only just recently caught Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”
Given that I’m playing catch-up, this is less a straightforward review than a collection of observations about what has become a major cultural phenomenon.
You needn’t be a past or present Barbie doll owner to enjoy the movie, but it sure helps.
The screenplay by Gerwig and significant other Noah Baumbach draws endlessly from the 60-plus-year history of Barbie, going so far as to resurrect as characters discontinued dolls like pregnant Midge, “Ken’s buddy” Allan (an hilarious appearance by Michael Cera as the lone wimp in a sea of muscled Kens), Video Girl Barbie (with a tiny TV screen embedded in her back) and even Sugar Daddy Ken (???).
As someone unfamiliar with all the Barbie permutations, I still found these characters amusing. But I can only imagine the giddy joy experienced by little girls (now women) who retain fond memories of these long-lost inhabitants of the Barbie universe.
The film is undeniably diverting and occasionally even moving, and packed with visual and aural jokes. But it cannot — in my opinion — live up to all the hype that has been generated since it hit the theaters.
In fact, I found myself becoming bored in the picture’s central section. For all the diverting eye candy and well-aimed jokes, the characters are still defined by their “doll-ness.” They are commercial objects, and as such remain essentially artificial rather than fully formed.
Within the limitations imposed on them, our Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are able to suggest a dawning emotional and intellectual depth. But I was never able to accept them as fully human.
There is, however, one moment that almost brought me to tears.
In the film’s central passage Barbie and Ken are transported to contemporary Los Angeles. There are plenty of jokes about doll world/real world culture clash.
But in one brief but throat-lumping scene, Barbie sits at a bus stop next to a white-haired old lady. She stares at the senior citizen for a moment and then says with near-reverence: “You’re beautiful!”
So much going on in just two words. There are no old people in Barbieworld, of course. The filmmakers could have played this encounter for laughs. But instead of being frightened or repulsed by this vision of mortality, our heroine is awed by the human truth exhibited by one old lady waiting for her bus.
Now that’s a GREAT movie moment.
“Barbie” has it both ways.
The film is a wicked satire of all that the Barbie franchise stands for; at the same time, it is never mean spirited. In fact, it’s a celebration. A balancing act for the ages.
Ryan Gosling is going to win an Oscar.
One bit of hype is absolutely true: Gosling is spectacularly entertaining as the shallow, preening Ken. It is a great comic performance that isimultaneously generates uproarious laughter while subtly suggesting a dawning consciousness.
The conservatives are right to be terrified.
The film is an incredibly effective parable about female empowerment, as Barbie (all the Barbies, actually) gain self-awareness.
Moreover, “Barbie” dives headfirst into political commentary when the Kens establish a Taliban-ish patriarchy over Barbieland. One of the film’s major themes is that of female desire (spiritual, not sexual) butting heads with male oppression.
Whether this constitutes man-bashing is in the eye of the beholder. Our friends on the right seem to think so.
I’m on board with the film’s point of view; even so, there were moments when it felt like Gerwig and Co. were endlessly rearguing their case. The phrase “beating a dead horse” comes to mind (an appropriate choice, given that a key manifestation of the Kens’ newfound toxic masculinity is an obsession with galloping stallions).
The film feels padded.
Most of what I found problematic about “Barbie” would have shot right past had the movie been, say, 90 minutes long instead of two hours. Better too short than too long.
The execs at Mattel (owners of the Barbie franchise) are either geniuses or idiots — not sure which.
“Barbie” is full of jabs at corporate culture, going so far as to cast Will Farrell as the bumbling president of Mattel.
How the hell did the screenplay get a pass from the company’s bigwigs? Since when have corporations developed a sense of humor…particularly self-satire? Like, making fun of their own products?
In the end it doesn’t matter. By serving as the butt of the filmmakers’ jokes, the corporation has found itself in the midst of a marketing bonanza. No doubt in the wake of all this sales of all things Barbie have gone stratospheric.
Talk about a happy ending.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 