Barbie
Oh, to have been in the Greta Gerwig/Noah Baumbach house while they wrote the inspired silliness of Barbie!
Packed with insanely clever jokes, the partners’ hyper-creative take on the iconic Mattel doll might be the year’s best comedy. At the very least, it’s 2023’s most fun moviegoing experience — a colorful, energetic romp that should delight anyone with even a remote investment in feminism and the capacity to laugh at themselves.
The film’s bubbly sense of freedom is evident from its opening minutes when the writing team playfully equates Barbie’s impact on young girls with the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and only blossoms from there as viewers are transported to the wonderful world of Barbie Land.
Working within Sarah Greenwood’s stunning production design, Gerwig lets her directorial prowess run wild, unfurling a distinct style of controlled chaos, rooted in such thoroughly realized storytelling that even the songs are in on the joke, commenting on the action and — at least once — protesting to being cut off by the all-knowing narrator (the voice of Helen Mirren).
Inhabiting this plastic paradise are numerous Barbies (who collectively believe they’ve solved all problems for women in the Real World) and Kens (who, in a welcome flip on post-WWII suburban culture, exist in a secondary role to their female neighbors) — plus a few one-offs, most memorably sad-sack Allan (Michael Cera). Their society is a fascinating, well-oiled machine, full of invisible beverage sips and broken bones that magically heal, and arguably more intriguing to witness in partial disarray as Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) starts experiencing dark thoughts and her carefully curated make-believe existence turns horribly, hilariously real.
After consulting Weird Barbie (a perfectly cast Kate McKinnon), our hero heads to the Real World to console the clearly disturbed human playing with her doll avatar, thereby restoring her Edenic existence. But with a stowaway Ken (Ryan Gosling) in tow, the fish out of water aren’t nearly as freaked out by their new surroundings as the situation suggests — part of an overall fuzzily developed symbiotic relationship between the two worlds that extends to the Mattel top brass and its CEO (Will Ferrell, who’s apparently required to be in films about playing with toys).
Considering Barbie’s subject matter, however, such details don’t matter much when the movie is this charming and entertaining, especially as it hits its stride and turns its attention to answering the all-important question: “What if Barbie and Ken visited the Real World and brought their findings back home?”
As Barbie returns with Gloria (America Ferrera) and her tween daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt, 65) in tow and witnesses the changes Ken has made with the place, the film remains in impressive motion as it ricochets between extremes that Gerwig and Baumbach wisely avoid sitting with for too long. As soon as things start to feel too pro-Mattel, they swing to strongly anti-Mattel, and once its feminist message reaches cartoonish levels, it turns to something more self-deprecating, never fully overwhelming the story on any front.
This busy nature results in a few too many moments of chaos but doesn't let much time elapse before delivering the next hilarious gag from the game ensemble, led by a gloriously committed Robbie and Gosling. The zany comic tone may be more in line with such recent Baumbach features as White Noise and The Meyerowitz Stories than Lady Bird and Little Women, but considering Gerwig’s noticeable impact on Mistress America’s script, her sensibilities are likewise felt here.
Through their scope, no one is safe for (mostly) good-natured jabs. The Snyder Cut, Pavement, Indigo Girls, and NSYNC receive some of the choicest roasts, plus viewers may find themselves in the odd position of contemplating Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas’ feelings for the first time in a good 15 years, and laughing all the harder as a result.
Wonderfully strange as these wide-ranging targets are, they’re not wholly random selections, chosen in pursuit of cheap yuks, but instead encourage a universal empathy that few films attempt. While the specifics may vary, who among us hasn’t turned to the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice as a cure for the blues, or mansplained The Godfather to a Corleone Saga novice?
By stressing relatability amidst the pink madness, Gerwig and Baumbach lay out an astonishing amount of narrative hooks that, like the numerous varieties of Barbies, are sure to appeal to a wide array of viewers. Subsequent adventures in this world seems imminent, and if these filmmakers are leading the way, it will be a welcome return.
Grade: B-plus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, the Fine Arts Theatre, Grail Moviehouse, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Warner Bros.)
