Barbie (2023)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Doll Hearts

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

If a live-action Barbie movie had been greenlit back in the 1980s or 1990s, it would have been a cross-country chase (with maybe Kim Basinger? Nicole Kidman?) to find Barbie's stolen Pink Cadillac or something of that nature. Greta Gerwig's Barbie could only have been made in 2023. She tackles it like a personal essay, a SNL sketch, a big-budget musical, a pastel-colored playset, and more. She has thrown everything into it, although I kind of wish she hadn't tried to get the kitchen sink in there too. It's a bit busy, and ideas fly around so fast that it's hard for some of them to stick. But it's a funny, sharp movie, and one that addresses themes of womanhood more clearly than any movie I can remember.

Helen Mirren narrates a prologue, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, explaining that, before Barbie, the dolls that girls played with were babies. Hence, girls could only play at being mothers. Barbie broke the doors open and, theoretically, allowed girls to play as presidents, astronauts, cooks, gold miners, or whatever the imagination landed on. As the story begins, the Barbies and Kens live in Barbieland. They are played with by children in the real world, but they "live" here, where everything is perfect. Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) seems to be the "main" Barbie, although they all seem to be equals as well (and remarkably diverse). Barbies wake up, drink an empty glass of milk, take a shower without water, and then climb into their pink convertibles for a perfect day.

Barbies run everything. They are in politics, construction, literature, etc. Meanwhile Ken (Ryan Gosling) and the other Kens live on the beach... just... on the beach, where their job is... "Beach." Their lives have no meaning unless Barbie acknowledges them. Our first day ends with a spectacular party (complete with synchronized dancing) at Barbie's Dream House. While dancing, Barbie suddenly asks, "does anyone ever think about death?" The next day, her arched feet (molded for high heels) suddenly fall flat, and there's a patch of cellulite on her leg.

She goes to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) for help. (Weird Barbies come about when an older brother or younger sister gets ahold of a doll, cuts its hair, draws all over it with markers, and leaves it in a "splits" position.) Weird Barbie sends our Barbie into the real world to find the girl who is playing with her and make things right. She hits the road to the tune of "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls and discovers that Ken has stowed away with her. They begin a sequence of magic events that include a boat, a rocketship, and other modes of transportation, before being deposited on Venice Beach wearing rollerblades.

In the real world, Barbie is horrified to discover that women aren't in control, and in fact, control barely anything. Meanwhile, Ken is elated to make the same discovery, vowing to bring "the patriarchy" back to Barbieland. Barbie connects with the people responsible for her changes — teen Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother, Gloria (America Ferrera), a Mattel employee — and brings them back to Barbieland as well. Unfortunately, when she gets there, she discovers a new dynamic going on, wherein the Barbies are mindlessly serving the Kens, bringing them brewskis and massaging their feet, while the Kens make the rules.

Thankfully, Gerwig's solution to the problem has nothing to do with restoring things to exactly the way they were before, nor does it have anything to do with Barbie and Ken becoming a couple. Her solution is more complex, and it requires several existential musings, some more musical numbers, and Will Ferrell, playing the CEO of Mattel, and a gaggle of yes-men running around and generally getting in the way. (I love Ferrell, but he gets no laughs here, and his character largely clogs things up.)

Meanwhile, Gerwig packs every corner of Barbie with historical footnotes, including mentions of bizarre ideas (such as Video Barbie, with a camera and microphone built into her necklace and a video screen on her back), happy jabs at Mattel, and tributes to people like Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie. But the key to the movie, I think, lies in the way the Barbies break the "patriarchy" spell; Gloria must deliver speeches about all the exhausting contradictions that make up a woman's life. I suspect that Gerwig's main theme is to use the complicated history and nature of Barbie as a metaphor for the complicated history and nature of women, and to celebrate all of it in a huge blast of joyous pink.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Blu-ray release looks spectacular. All those pinks really pop, and the songs get your toes tapping. Audio tracks include a great Dolby Atmos mix, a 5.1 mix, an English description track, plus French and English tracks. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, and French. Bonuses include several short featurettes, featuring director Gerwig and cast members: "It's a Weird World" (on "Weird" Barbie), "All-Star Barbie Party" (on the casting and on-set experience), "Musical Make-Believe" (on the dance party sequence), "Becoming Barbie" (on Robbie's makeup and costuming), "Welcome to Barbie Land" (on the production design), and "Playing Dress-Up" (on the costume design). A digital copy is included. Recommended.