time magazine barbie movie review

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How <i>Barbie</i> Came to Life

How Barbie Came to Life

T here’s plenty to consider about Barbie, but let’s start with her feet. Perfectly arched, but not quite demi-pointe—the ideal position to fit into any pump. They’re instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever played with the iconic doll. So when the trailer for the upcoming live-action Barbie movie opened with a shot of star Margot Robbie stepping out of Barbie’s marabou stilettos, still on tiptoes, the internet exploded. On TikTok, people attempted to mimic the viral shot with their highest heels. The Wall Street Journal interviewed a podiatrist about the physical impossibility of the moment. “I need to know everything,” tweeted Chrissy Teigen .

Robbie has answers: The shot took eight takes. She had to hold onto a bar to keep her feet flexed. And, yes, those are her feet. “I really don’t like it when someone else does my hands or feet in an insert shot,” she says.

Playing Barbie is complicated, and not just because it requires immense calf strength. I’ve reported on Barbie’s parent company Mattel for the better part of a decade and sat in on test groups with moms and their kids. Some parents say Barbie inspires their children to imagine themselves as astronauts and politicians. But others refuse to buy the doll—with her tiny waist and large breasts— because she has set an impossible beauty standard for their daughters, a problem that precipitated major changes to the doll’s look in 2016. A Barbie movie was always going to be fraught, and the studio marketing the film knows it. As the trailer posits , “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”

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Barbie will be the proof of concept when it hits theaters on July 21, but first it has to go up against Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible) and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) in the busiest summer movie season in years. If projections of a $55 million opening weekend prove out, it will be thanks to Barbie mania. Anything associated with the film—a rare blockbuster catering directly to women—has been breathlessly received, from paparazzi photos of Robbie and co-star Ryan Gosling (as Ken) skating down Venice Beach in fluorescent spandex last summer to a teaser that cleverly parodies 2001: A Space Odyssey . Mattel has engineered some of the hype by launching Malibu Barbie cafés and announcing partnerships with Bloomingdale’s, Crocs, and Hot Topic. Other moments suggest a snowball effect: Kim Kardashian recently threw her daughter a Barbie-themed birthday party, and celebs are stepping out in hot pink designer minidresses . (Though, as a Mattel executive reminds me, Barbiecore “didn’t just happen.”)

Whatever audiences ultimately think of Barbie, Gerwig still can’t seem to believe she got away with making this version. “This movie is a goddamn miracle,” she says. She calls it a “surprising spicy margarita.” By the time you realize the salted rim has cayenne mixed in, it’s too late. “You can already taste the sweetness and you sort of go with the spice.”

How did a filmmaker who is best known for thoughtful movies about women’s inner lives come to write and direct a movie about a toy who has no inner life, and is (mostly) defined by her looks? It’s simple: Gerwig loves dolls.

“I played with dolls too long,” says the 39-year-old director. “I was still doing it in junior high. Kids were drinking, and I was playing with dolls.” Gerwig’s mom wasn’t a fan of Barbie for feminist reasons: “She went through the ’60s and was like, ‘What did we do all this for?’” But playing with Barbies proved to be a training ground for Gerwig’s job as a professional storyteller.

Gerwig and her partner, the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, wrote the script under unusual circumstances. After they participated in a Barbie boot camp put on by Mattel, which began with a history lesson on Barbie inventor Ruth Handler and involved a tour of Barbie’s most fabulous (and regrettable) fashions, the pandemic struck. Cloistered in their home in New York, the duo didn’t receive the typical studio notes as they drafted. “We worked hard to give them their space and let them come up with what the movie was going to be, uninterrupted, without people pushing an agenda on them—not Mattel, not Warner Bros., not us,” says Robbie, 32, whose company LuckyChap produced the film. “And then when I saw the script, I was like, ‘They’re never going to let us do this. This is really pushing it.’”

Read More: How Greta Gerwig Is Leading By Example

So, what exactly is this movie? Even with the onslaught of pink-tinged marketing, Warner Bros. has managed to keep the plot under wraps. I’m not here to spoil the film, which I watched in Gerwig’s temporary office, a gray space in Chelsea accessorized with a magenta Barbie doormat. But I can share that it’s a fun yet self-aware romp with shades of Clueless and Legally Blonde. It’s also stuffed full of ideas, and occasionally overwhelmed by them.

The movie is set in Barbie Land, a utopia where each Barbie has an impressive job. As Helen Mirren’s narrator wryly tells us, “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved.” The Barbies have sleepovers every night during which they declare how beautiful and confident they feel. The Kens (played by Gosling and Simu Liu, among others) exist as convenient dance partners. But then Robbie’s Barbie begins to think about mortality. Those arched feet go flat. Cellulite appears on her thigh. To combat these changes, she must venture into the real world with Ken, who has been feeling like a mere accessory in Barbie’s dream life. The real world is, well, real. Men in suits at Mattel—led by Will Ferrell’s CEO—make disingenuous speeches about female empowerment; preteens dress Barbie down for wreaking havoc on their self-esteem. Both Barbie and Ken go on quests of self-discovery, and that’s when things get really interesting. (I won’t give away Ken’s story, but Gosling nearly steals the show.)

There’s also a surprisingly balletic musical number that appears to be inspired by Grease and Singin’ in the Rain; a car-chase sequence; a mysterious woman in a kitchen; and a running gag about Sylvester Stallone’s penchant for mink coats. And that’s all before things turn philosophical.

Every single actor I spoke to cited Gerwig and the sharp script as the reason they joined the film. “I knew this was not going to shy away from the parts of Barbie that are more interesting but potentially a little bit more fraught,” says Hari Nef, who plays a doctor Barbie. “The contemporary history of feminism and body positivity—there are questions of how Barbie can fit into all of that.”

Those points proved more controversial with the corporate entities involved. Robbie Brenner, the first-ever executive producer of Mattel Films and the architect of its cinematic universe, told the company’s top brass, “You’re just gonna white-knuckle it the whole time.”

Gerwig earned the toymaker’s trust with the help of Robbie. At one point Richard Dickson, COO and president of Mattel, says he took a flight to the London set to argue with Gerwig and Robbie over a particular scene, which he felt was off-brand. Dickson dials up his natural boyish exuberance, imitating himself righteously marching off the plane to meet them. But Gerwig and Robbie performed the scene for him and changed his mind. “When you look on the page, the nuance isn’t there, the delivery isn’t there,” explains Robbie.

Read More: Why It Took 64 Years to Make a Barbie Movie

Robbie had laid the groundwork for this with Mattel’s CEO when she met with him in 2018 in the hopes that LuckyChap could take on the Barbie project. “In that very first meeting, we impressed upon Ynon we are going to honor the legacy of your brand, but if we don’t acknowledge certain things—if we don’t say it, someone else is going to say it,” she says. “So you might as well be a part of that conversation.”

Kreiz has hosted several pivotal meetings about Barbie at the Polo Lounge, a see-and-be-seen spot in the Beverly Hills Hotel. It’s where he met Robbie for the first time, and where he invited Brenner to discuss running Mattel’s film division. And so, too, Kreiz invites me, without a hint of irony, to the Polo Lounge to talk about all the other Barbie conversations that took place there. Kreiz was the fourth Mattel CEO in four years when he took over in 2018. He orchestrated a turnaround that included courting Hollywood’s biggest talent with an exacting pitch that has proven to be persuasive. “It’s not about making movies so that we can go and sell more toys,” he says. “We’ve been doing well selling toys without movies.” (The movie does help: the day a Margot Robbie Barbie went on sale, it became the No. 1 doll on Amazon.)

“The most important transition was from being a toy-manufacturing company that was making items to becoming an IP company that is managing franchises,” he says. It’s a particularly prescient strategy at a moment when superhero fatigue has set in and studios are desperate to find new intellectual property with a built-in fan base—from Super Mario Bros. to Dungeons & Dragons . Mattel has announced 14 more movies based on its toys, including a J.J. Abrams–produced Hot Wheels movie and (intriguingly) a Barney film with Daniel Kaluuya . The expansion also includes more streaming shows, video games, and a Mattel theme park currently under construction in Arizona.

From an outdoor table covered in leaves, Kreiz points out the spot where he and Robbie met. The CEO had been as eager to talk with Robbie as she had been to pursue a Barbie film. Before he hired Brenner as executive producer of Mattel Films, he asked who she thought should play the iconic doll. She too said Robbie. “She’s very funny, she’s deep, she’s a fantastic actress, and she does look like …” Brenner pauses. “She’s beautiful.”

It’s obvious why both executives zeroed in on Robbie. She looks like Barbie. Or, as the film says, she looks like “Stereotypical Barbie.” The distinction is important. Just eight years back, in 2015, Barbie’s sales had sunk to $900 million, the lowest in 25 years. So in 2016, Mattel made the biggest change to the doll since she debuted in 1959. In a TIME cover story , I reported on how, after rolling out a wider array of skin tones and hair types for the dolls, Mattel launched three new body types, including Curvy Barbie. It (eventually) worked. Barbie sales rose and hit a record $1.7 billion in 2021 before a small industry-wide slump last year.

Mattel had been toying with the idea of a Barbie movie since 2009. Big stars ( Amy Schumer , Anne Hathaway ) and prominent directors like Patty Jenkins were rumored to be attached before Robbie met with the company in 2018. One of the reasons Mattel resisted bringing Barbie to the big screen for so long is because the company worked hard to modernize the brand and establish that Barbie is not one body, one personality, one woman. There are currently 175 different Barbies, with different combinations of body shapes, skin tones, and hair types. And yet, here is Margot Robbie on the poster as the manifestation of Barbie. There’s a moment in the film where Mirren makes a tongue-in-cheek joke about Robbie being too beautiful to feel insecure.

Dickson argues that Barbie has to look like Robbie to get audiences who haven’t followed Mattel’s latest updates into theaters. “Of course she looks like Barbie,” he says. “But they’re all Barbie. It’s the perfect cast to express what Barbie is today. And Margot is the bridge.”

Robbie is flattered that the Mattel execs thought of her, but she would never have wanted to play the only Barbie. “If [Mattel] hadn’t made that change to have a multiplicity of Barbies, I don’t think I would have wanted to attempt to make a Barbie film,” she says. “I don’t think you should say, ‘This is the one version of what Barbie is, and that’s what women should aspire to be and look like and act like.’”

Issa Rae , 38, who plays President Barbie, argues that the entire point of the film is to portray a world in which there isn’t a singular ideal. “My worry was that it was going to feel too white feminist-y, but I think that it’s self-aware,” she says. “Barbie Land is perfect, right? It represents perfection. So if perfection is just a bunch of white Barbies, I don’t know that anybody can get on board with that.”

Read More: What to Know About Midge and Allan, the Deepest Cuts From the Barbie Movie

But it seems Mattel was resistant to appearing too modern. In a recent interview, Amy Schumer revealed that she left her Barbie movie because it wasn’t “feminist and cool,” as she assumes Gerwig’s will be. Dickson, who was in the C-suite at Mattel for other movie discussions, doesn’t comment on Schumer but reflects on past experiences: “It was a matter of finding the right talent that can appreciate the brand’s authenticity and bring that controversy to life in a way that, yes, pokes fun at us but ultimately is purposeful and has heart.”

Still, in an interview for this story, Brenner called Gerwig’s film “not a feminist movie,” a sentiment echoed by other Mattel executives I spoke with. It was a striking contrast to my interpretation of the film and conversations with many of the actors, who used that term unprompted to describe the script. When I relay Mattel’s words to Robbie, she raises an eyebrow. “Who said that?” she asks then sighs. “It’s not that it is or it isn’t. It’s a movie. It’s a movie that’s got so much in it.” The bigger point, Robbie impresses upon me, is “we’re in on the joke. This isn’t a Barbie puff piece.”

Barbie’s Corvette isn’t any old convertible with a slick of pink paint. If you place the doll in her car, it’s too small—the windshield ends at her chest. And so Gerwig insisted the life-size version must be a little small for Robbie. Barbie’s vehicle was carefully created as a model, and scaled up using a mathematical formula to ensure everything in Barbie Land looked “toyetic.”

Read More: How Greta Gerwig Got Barbie —From the Clothes to the Dream House—Just Right

Gerwig’s team built an entire neighborhood made up of Dream Houses that were missing walls. The actors had to be secured by wires so they wouldn’t topple off the second floors. The skies and clouds in the background were hand-painted to render a playroom-like quality, as was much of the rest of the set.

“From a production perspective, it’s bigger than anything we’ve done before,” says Tom Ackerley, 33, Robbie’s producing partner and husband. “We wanted it to feel like you could reach into the screen and touch it.” LuckyChap enlisted David Heyman, who produced the Harry Potter films , to help create this fantastical world. “I don’t think we have seen or will ever see a film with more pink in it,” says Heyman. Gerwig jokingly nicknamed the duo Ken David and Ken Tom.

Not everyone in the film had as robust a relationship with Barbie growing up as Gerwig did. Kate McKinnon preferred to play with shells she found on the beach or small plastic zoo animals. “I didn’t see myself in Barbie when I was younger,” she says. “I saw myself in an inflatable lobster.”

Barbie Movie Mattel Hari Nef Issa Rae Alexandra Shipp Margot Robbie Kate McKinnon

But McKinnon, 39, watched her sister and friends play with the dolls: they cut Barbie’s hair, drew on her face, and even set her on fire. She theorizes, “They were externalizing how they felt, and they felt different.” So when Gerwig offered McKinnon the role of Weird Barbie, a doll that’s been played with a little too aggressively in the real world, she jumped at the chance. McKinnon was impressed by the way the script dealt with girls’ complicated attachments to the doll. “It comments honestly about the positive and negative feelings,” she says. “It’s an incisive cultural critique.”

Alexandra Shipp, who plays an author Barbie, also projected onto the dolls as a child. Shipp, 31, rode on Warner Bros.’ Barbie float in the West Hollywood Pride Parade this year and reflects that Barbie helped her explore aspects of her identity. “When you’re a kid, your toys are an extension of who you are and how you can exist in the world as an adult,” says Shipp. “Sure, I had Kens, but when I played house, I had two Barbies raising a Skipper.”

On social media, Nef, 30, published a letter she wrote to Gerwig and Robbie asking to play one of the Barbies in the film. She says that as a trans woman, she feels ambivalent about the word doll, a slang term in queer culture for trans women, particularly those who celebrate the high femme. The word can feel at once aspirational and oppressive. “It’s a tricky word that holds, for me anyway, such a strict standard created by the patriarchy that deserves to be scrutinized but also a promise of liberation and safety and belonging,” she says. “At the very least, there’s a juicy performance as a doll somewhere in there.”

The world may be obsessed with Barbie’s feet, but Gerwig would like to draw my attention to Barbie’s hands. The director is holed up in New York City putting the final touches on the movie, and she’s eager to dig into its minutiae. The PR team reminds me that our Zoom call is long over, but Gerwig needs a few more minutes to point out that there is a specific image in the film that bears a striking resemblance to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam . She starts to point a finger downward, excitedly mimicking the moment in which God bestows life on the first man. Except, in Gerwig’s filmed fresco, Barbie creator Ruth Handler’s hand touches Barbie’s hand.

“It’s on the same trajectory and angle as the Sistine Chapel,” she says. “Nobody is going to notice that so I have to say it.” There’s a lot to unpack in the notion of Handler as God, creating the perfect woman, to be placed in an idyllic matriarchy—and the inevitable chaos that will ensue when Barbie leaves this paradise. But anytime I get too deep into references or the politics of this film with Gerwig or the actors, I’m quickly reminded by an executive or a producer that it’s a fun summer romp.

And it is, in part. It’s a mashup of corporate ambition and personal quirk. Perhaps that’s a triumph in an era when movies about products are en vogue. In the past several months alone we’ve gotten films based on a Nike shoe ( Air ), an obsolete smartphone (BlackBerry), and a snack ( Flamin’ Hot ). For Mattel, Barbie is just the beginning. Kreiz enthuses about the possibility of “more Barbie movies.”

Robbie hedges. She’s been involved in conversations, but nothing is set. “It could go a million different directions from this point,” she says. “But I think you fall into a bit of a trap if you try and set up a first movie whilst also planning for sequels.”

It’s hard to imagine a sequel, or any other toy movie for that matter, making the splash that Barbie already has. “We’re looking to create movies that become cultural events,” Kreiz says, and to do that Mattel needs visionaries to produce something more intriguing than a toy ad. “If you can excite filmmakers like Greta and Noah to embrace the opportunity and have creative freedom, you can have a real impact.”

Gerwig herself admits “sometimes these movies can have a quality of hegemonic capitalism” and she had to find ways to make the movie her own. She wove in footage of the cast and crew’s friends and family, including images Robbie has filmed herself on a Super 8 over the years, to give the film a personal touch. It’s a home movie smack-dab in the heart of a summer blockbuster, and Gerwig cries every time she watches that part. “It’s like sneaking in humanity to something that everybody thinks is a hunk of plastic.”

Movement directed by Jamie Neale; fashion edited by Carolina Orrico; set design by James Rene; Nef: styled by Chris Horan, hair by Dhairius Thomas, makeup by Loft Jet; Shipp: styled by Alexandra Mandelkorn, hair by Larry Sims, makeup by Cherish Brooke Hill; Robbie: styled by Andrew Mukamal, hair by Bryce Scarlett, makeup by Nina Park, nails by Tom Bachik; Rae: styled by Wouri Vice, hair by Felicia Leatherwood, makeup by Joanna Simkin; McKinnon: styled by Rebecca Grice, hair by Christine Nelli, makeup by Katey Denno; nails by Natalie Minerva and Vanessa Sanchez McCullough; production by Viewfinders

On the cover: Nef: dress and bra by Maison Martin Margiela, corset by Mr. Pearl, gloves by Elena Velez, earrings by Eera, boots by Gianvito Rossi; Shipp: bodysuit and coat by Courrèges, ring by Lillou, ear cuff by Jennybird, boots by Stuart Weitzman; Robbie: dress, brief, and earrings by Bottega Veneta, boots by Manolo Blahnik; Rae: top, skirt, and boots by Acne Studios; McKinnon: suit by Brioni, shirt by Frame, boots by Loq

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"Barbie," director and co-writer Greta Gerwig ’s summer splash, is a dazzling achievement, both technically and in tone. It’s a visual feast that succeeds as both a gleeful escape and a battle cry. So crammed with impeccable attention to detail is "Barbie” that you couldn’t possibly catch it all in a single sitting; you’d have to devote an entire viewing just to the accessories, for example. The costume design (led by two-time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran ) and production design (led by six-time Oscar nominee Sarah Greenwood ) are constantly clever and colorful, befitting the ever-evolving icon, and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (a three-time Oscar nominee) gives everything a glossy gleam. It’s not just that Gerwig & Co. have recreated a bunch of Barbies from throughout her decades-long history, outfitted them with a variety of clothing and hairstyles, and placed them in pristine dream houses. It’s that they’ve brought these figures to life with infectious energy and a knowing wink.

“Barbie” can be hysterically funny, with giant laugh-out-loud moments generously scattered throughout. They come from the insularity of an idyllic, pink-hued realm and the physical comedy of fish-out-of-water moments and choice pop culture references as the outside world increasingly encroaches. But because the marketing campaign has been so clever and so ubiquitous, you may discover that you’ve already seen a fair amount of the movie’s inspired moments, such as the “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ” homage and Ken’s self-pitying ‘80s power ballad. Such is the anticipation industrial complex.

And so you probably already know the basic plot: Barbie ( Margot Robbie ), the most popular of all the Barbies in Barbieland, begins experiencing an existential crisis. She must travel to the human world in order to understand herself and discover her true purpose. Her kinda-sorta boyfriend, Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), comes along for the ride because his own existence depends on Barbie acknowledging him. Both discover harsh truths—and make new friends –along the road to enlightenment. This bleeding of stark reality into an obsessively engineered fantasy calls to mind the revelations of “ The Truman Show ” and “The LEGO Movie,” but through a wry prism that’s specifically Gerwig’s.

This is a movie that acknowledges Barbie’s unrealistic physical proportions—and the kinds of very real body issues they can cause in young girls—while also celebrating her role as a feminist icon. After all, there was an astronaut Barbie doll (1965) before there was an actual woman in NASA’s astronaut corps (1978), an achievement “Barbie” commemorates by showing two suited-up women high-fiving each other among the stars, with Robbie’s Earth-bound Barbie saluting them with a sunny, “Yay, space!” This is also a movie in which Mattel (the doll’s manufacturer) and Warner Bros. (the film’s distributor) at least create the appearance that they’re in on the surprisingly pointed jokes at their expense. Mattel headquarters features a spacious, top-floor conference room populated solely by men with a heart-shaped, “ Dr. Strangelove ”-inspired lamp hovering over the table, yet Will Ferrell ’s CEO insists his company’s “gender-neutral bathrooms up the wazoo” are evidence of diversity. It's a neat trick.

As the film's star, Margot Robbie finds just the right balance between satire and sincerity. She’s the perfect casting choice; it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed stunner completely looks the part, of course, but she also radiates the kind of unflagging, exaggerated optimism required for this heightened, candy-coated world. Later, as Barbie’s understanding expands, Robbie masterfully handles the more complicated dialogue by Gerwig and her co-writer and frequent collaborator, filmmaker Noah Baumbach . From a blinding smile to a single tear and every emotion in between, Robbie finds the ideal energy and tone throughout. Her performance is a joy to behold.

And yet, Ryan Gosling is a consistent scene-stealer as he revels in Ken’s himbo frailty. He goes from Barbie’s needy beau to a swaggering, macho doofus as he throws himself headlong into how he thinks a real man should behave. (Viewers familiar with Los Angeles geography will particularly get a kick out of the places that provide his inspiration.) Gosling sells his square-jawed character’s earnestness and gets to tap into his “All New Mickey Mouse Club” musical theater roots simultaneously. He’s a total hoot.

Within the film’s enormous ensemble—where the women are all Barbies and the men are all Kens, with a couple of exceptions—there are several standouts. They include a gonzo Kate McKinnon as the so-called “Weird Barbie” who places Robbie’s character on her path; Issa Rae as the no-nonsense President Barbie; Alexandra Shipp as a kind and capable Doctor Barbie; Simu Liu as the trash-talking Ken who torments Gosling’s Ken; and America Ferrera in a crucial role as a Mattel employee. And we can’t forget Michael Cera as the one Allan, bumbling awkwardly in a sea of hunky Kens—although everyone else forgets Allan.

But while “Barbie” is wildly ambitious in an exciting way, it’s also frustratingly uneven at times. After coming on strong with wave after wave of zippy hilarity, the film drags in the middle as it presents its more serious themes. It’s impossible not to admire how Gerwig is taking a big swing with heady notions during the mindless blockbuster season, but she offers so many that the movie sometimes stops in its propulsive tracks to explain itself to us—and then explain those points again and again. The breezy, satirical edge she established off the top was actually a more effective method of conveying her ideas about the perils of toxic masculinity and entitlement and the power of female confidence and collaboration.

One character delivers a lengthy, third-act speech about the conundrum of being a woman and the contradictory standards to which society holds us. The middle-aged mom in me was nodding throughout in agreement, feeling seen and understood, as if this person knew me and was speaking directly to me. But the longtime film critic in me found this moment a preachy momentum killer—too heavy-handed, too on-the-nose, despite its many insights.

Still, if such a crowd-pleasing extravaganza can also offer some fodder for thoughtful conversations afterward, it’s accomplished several goals simultaneously. It’s like sneaking spinach into your kid’s brownies—or, in this case, blondies.

Available in theaters on July 21st.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Barbie (2023)

Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language.

114 minutes

Margot Robbie as Barbie

Ryan Gosling as Ken

America Ferrera as Gloria

Will Ferrell as Mattel CEO

Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie

Ariana Greenblatt as Sasha

Issa Rae as President Barbie

Rhea Perlman as Ruth Handler

Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie

Emma Mackey as Physicist Barbie

Alexandra Shipp as Writer Barbie

Michael Cera as Allan

Helen Mirren as Narrator

Simu Liu as Ken

Dua Lipa as Mermaid Barbie

John Cena as Kenmaid

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Ken

Scott Evans as Ken

Jamie Demetriou as Mattel Executive

Greta Gerwig
Noah Baumbach

Cinematographer

Rodrigo Prieto
Alexandre Desplat
Mark Ronson

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Review: ‘Barbie’ is a film by women, about women, for women.

Ryan Gosling, left, and Margot Robbie in a scene from "Barbie."

This essay contains spoilers for “Barbie.”

When we walked into the AMC Lincoln Square 13 in New York City for the Thursday 3 p.m. viewing of “Barbie,” we found ourselves surrounded by pink. Women wore heels and sparkling jewelry, and young girls in sundresses clutched their Margot Robbie Collectible Barbies . We had come prepared—adorned in our own pink outfits, we happily took photos for a friend group in exchange for a few of our own. People laughed and chatted through the trailers, and broke out in whooping cheers as the movie began. Every seat was filled. The positive energy was palpable. It felt like a party.

In a nuanced approach characteristic of the director Greta Gerwig, whose previous projects “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Little Women” (2019) received critical acclaim, the Barbie movie is a hilarious, vibrant tribute to an iconic doll central to decades of imaginative play. At the same time, the film manages to be an exploration of Barbie’s cultural impact—good, bad and in-between. Through on-the-nose commentary on everything from Barbie’s representation of independent female adulthood to her unrealistic, idealized body proportions, Gerwig makes a movie as layered and paradoxical as the reputation of the doll itself.

Greta Gerwig has made a movie as layered and paradoxical as the reputation of Barbie itself.

“Barbie” dives head-first into many controversial topics: consumer culture, growing up, parental relationships, gender dynamics and a multitude of other issues—offering commentary while managing to make the doll look great in the process. Mattel allowed the societal perceptions of Barbie to be examined, though the film ultimately reclaims Barbie, because Barbie can be whatever you want, and Barbie supports all women. Whether Barbie’s feminism is direct or ironic, the movie seemed to say, it is guilt-free to buy her.

But for a project that is arguably an action-packed, 114-minute commercial for a doll, the main thematic takeaway from “Barbie” is that life as a real woman is significantly more difficult but resolutely more worthwhile than “life in plastic” could ever be.

For those who have been anticipating the release of “Barbie,” the sold-out theaters and tremendous box office numbers (Barbie brought in $155 million on its opening weekend) come as no surprise—nor does the vibrant appearance of the audience, a result of Mattel’s marketing campaign, which included pre-film partnerships with brands like Gap and Crocs .

The promotion worked because it tapped into an existing market of people who grew up with Barbie. Created in 1959 as one of the first grown-up woman dolls for children, the affordable toy has been a controversial yet beloved plaything for decades. Like many in the audience, the two of us played with Barbies as little girls, and therefore had firsthand access to the complicated influence that such a doll—who is anything she wants to be while always looking perfect—can have on a young girl.

Using the aesthetic history of the doll as inspiration, the first portion of the movie is set in Barbie Land, where self-proclaimed “Stereotypical Barbie” (played by Margot Robbie) and the other Barbies live in a peaceful paradise, partaking in various occupations and leisure activities. Their counterparts, the Kens, do nothing except “beach” and act as platonic companions for the Barbies (when desired). These scenes are packed with clever humor and nostalgia for those who remember playing with Barbies—just like in our games, the Barbies never use stairs, only pretend to drink liquids, and say “Hi Barbie!” to every other doll in sight.

The Stereotypical Barbie’s blissful naïvete is disrupted one morning when she starts to develop self-awareness and anxiety, accompanied by dreaded flat feet and “thoughts of death.” In order to return to how things were, Barbie needs to venture into the “real world,” where she is instantly sexualized and objectified, accused of being a fascist by teenagers and jailed for assault after punching a man who catcalls her.

The main takeaway from “Barbie” is that life as a real woman is significantly more difficult but resolutely more worthwhile than “life in plastic” could ever be.

The movie follows somewhat of a hero(ine)’s journey arc, complete with a car chase and a rise to leadership, as Barbie tries to rid herself of emotional turmoil—and eventually, as she tries to save Barbie Land from Ken (Ryan Gosling), who had a much more enjoyable time in the real world and decided to bring patriarchy back to Barbie Land with him.

But while the dolls and their conflicts (full of inside jokes from Barbie history) are certainly the most fun, vibrant part of the movie, the human characters in the movie—particularly Gloria, a Mattel employee played by America Ferrera, and her daughter Sasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt—shift the focus away from an analysis of dollhood and toward an exploration of womanhood.

As Gloria and Sasha discover that they are at fault for Barbie’s weird behavior, they attempt to help the doll reachieve stability for herself and her community. In doing so, the audience is privy to a moving exploration of what it means to grow up as a woman, from the perspective of both mother and daughter.

The movie is almost painfully upfront about the struggles women face, giving voice to a certain exasperated frustration that may seem overly explicit, but for many responding to the film, just feels true. After Barbie is ready to give in to self-pity and existential dread, Gloria encourages Barbie to forgive herself for her mistakes and imperfections, expressing all the impossible expectations placed on modern women. “It’s too hard,” she says about womanhood, “It’s too contradictory.” Stereotypical Barbie stares at her wide-eyed, and Gloria’s daughter gives her a surprised smile. In giving voice to the emotions that started this journey, Gloria empowers the Barbies to reclaim Barbie Land.

The movie is for everyone to see and enjoy, but ultimately “Barbie” is truly a film by women, about women, for women.

In the end, Barbie, having seen the gendered challenges of the real world for herself and heard from Gloria the exhaustion that comes with them, still decides to become a human—a woman.

In an emotional scene between the ghost of Ruth Handler, the creator of the doll, and Barbie herself, they discuss what it would mean for Barbie to leave dollhood behind. Handler holds Barbie’s hands and tells her to “feel.” The scene fades into a montage of videos of young girls and grown women, laughing, talking, playing and enjoying their lives. The videos feature women involved in the process of making the movie. When Barbie opens her eyes again, she has tears on her face (so did many in the audience).

For us, this felt very reminiscent of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Contemplation on the Incarnation , which asks the retreatant to imagine the three Divine Persons gazing down on the earth full of people and considering what stimuli imbue their senses. These scenes, of so many different people and emotions, flash before Barbie, and she is overwhelmed with the joys and sufferings of the world, with women at the forefront.

The movie ends with Barbie, newly human and clad in her designed-for-the-partnership pink Birkenstocks, going to the gynecologist. This joke wraps up all the references to dolls not having any genitals (which Barbie ostensibly receives when she makes the choice to become human), while, we think, stressing the importance of reproductive health and bringing to the big screen public discourse about a taboo topic. Like every part of the movie, Gerwig pushes boundaries of conversation through humor that is written to make women, in particular, feel seen.

At its core, the Barbie movie is a much needed tribute to womanhood. This is evident in one of the most subtle but moving scenes from the film, which occurs early in Barbie’s trip to the real world, when she sits at a bus stop, crying because nothing seems to be going her way. She looks over and sees an old woman, played by the famous costume designer Ann Roth (aging doesn’t exist in Barbie Land). Barbie smiles at her and says, “You’re beautiful.” The woman smiles serenely and replies simply, “I know.” In retrospect, this deeply humane and moving encounter prefaces Barbie’s decision to join the real world. It seems as if Barbie is recognizing the magnitude of everything a real woman is, and everything she later chooses to be.

The female characters Barbie meets in the real world show her that women manage to exist in a world that is so often against them, and do so best when working together. The movie is for everyone to see and enjoy, but ultimately “Barbie” is truly a film by women, about women, for women. It is a film we certainly will be seeing again.

Brigid McCabe was an editorial intern at America Media in 2023. She studies History and American Studies at Columbia University.

Laura Oldfather was an editorial intern with America Media in 2023. She studies Theology and Journalism at Fordham University.

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‘Barbie’ May Be the Most Subversive Blockbuster of the 21st Century

By David Fear

It’s tough to sell a decades-old doll and actively make you question why you’d still buy a toy that comes with so much baggage. (Metaphorically speaking, of course — literal baggage sold separately.) The makers of Barbie know this. They know that you know that it’s an attempt by Mattel to turn their flagship blonde bombshell into a bona fide intellectual property, coming to a multiplex near you courtesy of Warner Bros. And they’re also well aware that the announcement that Greta Gerwig would be co-writing and directing this movie about everyone’s favorite tiny, leggy bearer of impossible beauty standards suddenly transformed it from “dual corporate cash-in” to “dual corporate cash-in with a very high probability of wit, irony, and someone quoting Betty Friedan and/or Rebecca Walker.”

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Every morning, Barbie (Robbie) wakes up in her beautiful, open-faced mansion, waves to the legion of other Barbies in their beautiful, open-faced Barbieland mansions, and greets the day with a smile. Early afternoons are reserved for listening to President Barbie ( Issa Rae ) make executive decisions, or watching a Barbie journalist win a Barbie Pulitzer, or cheering a Barbie Supreme Court that lays down the law for the good of all Barbiekind. Late afternoons are for going to the beach, where Ken (Gosling) endlessly competes for Barbie’s affections against Ken (Simu Liu) and Ken (Kingsley Ben-Adir), among other Kens. Nighttime is for extravagantly choreographed disco-dance parties , DJ-ed by none other than Barbie (Hari Nef), and — much to Ken’s dismay — all-girl sleepovers. Eventually, the cardboard backdrop will rotate from moon to sun, and it’s time for yet another day in utopia.

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Once in our world, Barbie will encounter sexual harassment, gender inequity, the benefits of crying, the CEO of Mattel ( Will Ferrell ) and the mother (America Ferrara) and daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) who’ve introduced such morbid thoughts into her brain. Ken will discover horses, Hummer SUVs, and toxic masculinity . She returns with her new human friends to Barbieland in a state of dazed enlightenment. He comes back as a full-blown Kencel, spreading a gospel of full-frontal dude-ity.

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Critical thinking isn’t mind corruption, of course. Nor is pointing out that you can love something and recognize that it’s flawed or has become inflammatory over time, then striving to fix it. It’s definitely not a bad thing to turn a potential franchise, whether built on a line of dolls or not, into something that refuses to dumb itself down or pander to the lowest common denominator. And the victory that is Gerwig, Robbie, and Gosling — along with a supporting cast and crew that revel in the idea of joining a benefic Barbie party — slipping in heady notions about sexualization, capitalism, social devolution, human rights and self-empowerment, under the guise of a lucrative, brand-extending trip down memory lane? That’s enough to make you giddy. We weren’t kidding about the “subversive” part above; ditto the “blockbuster.” A big movie can still have big ideas in 2023. Even a Barbie movie. Especially a Barbie movie.

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‘Barbie’ Review: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling Compete for Control of High-Concept Living Doll Comedy

Greta Gerwig loads plenty of food for thought in a hot pink pop fantasia, poking fun at patriarchy and corporate parent Mattel in her treatment of the iconic “girls can do anything” doll.

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Check out the brain on Barbie ! Sure, she’s just a doll, but that doesn’t mean she has to be an airhead. Therein lies “Lady Bird” director Greta Gerwig ’s inspired, 21st-century solution to bringing one of America’s most iconic playthings to life on the big screen. Combine that with the casting of Margot Robbie in the title role, and “Barbie” is already starting out on the right, perfectly arched foot. So what if this high-concept comedy falls a bit flat in the final stretch?

That’s an admirable achievement, given understandably protective corporate parent Mattel — though let’s be honest, in the year 2023, it would be a shock (and box office suicide) if “Barbie” arrived without some kind of female-empowerment message baked in. This one checks all the right boxes, while making Ryan Gosling ’s dumb-dumb Ken the butt of most of its gender-equity jokes. Boasting fresh tracks from Billie Eilish and Lizzo, the result is a very funny kids’ movie with a freshman liberal arts student’s vocabulary that tosses around terms like “patriarchy” and “appropriation” — pretty much everything but “problematic,” which the movie implies without actually calling Barbie’s legacy.

Barbie Land, as it’s called, is an inherently hilarious alternate reality modeled on the dream that Mattel has been selling American girls since the doll was introduced in 1959. It looks a lot like the one they’ve seen in countless commercials, where flamingo-bright Barbie Dreamhouses inspire envy as a diverse collection of perky, positive-minded dolls smile and wave at one another (represented here by such avatars as Alexandra Shipp and Dua Lipa, Issa Rae and Ritu Aryu, Hari Nef and Sharon Rooney). It’s a wild pop-art space, all but exploding with supersaturated color, where the doll heads appear lower contrast and backlit, obliging us to squint to make out the actors’ faces.

You half-expect to see a giant hand reach in from the sky to interact with these lifelike toys, but that’s not how it works. Instead, Gerwig enlists Helen Mirren as narrator to lay out the rules, pausing now and then to spotlight specific costumes, interject vintage TV spots or cast shade on discontinued products — such as Growing Up Skipper, with her inflatable bust; pregnant Midge; or questionable-taste offerings like Sugar Daddy and Tanner, a flocked dog that poops plastic pellets.

Although Robbie’s blond-haired, fair-skinned Stereotypical Barbie seems to possess some abstract notion of herself as a toy, there’s a major disconnect between inventor Ruth Handler’s best intentions and the state of things in the Real World (where the movie spends roughly half its time): “Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved,” Mirren sarcastically summarizes. One evening, in the middle of a dance party, Stereotypical Barbie blurts out, “You guys ever think about dying?” The next morning, she’s horrified to find her feet have flattened and a patch of cellulite has appeared. What could be threatening her near-perfect physique?

The answer lies in the Real World, where Barbie and Ken (Gosling’s Ken, not the ones played by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, John Cena and others) steer her pink Corvette, emerging at Venice Beach wearing matching fluorescent Hot Skatin’ ensembles. Yes, “Barbie” is one of those movies, like “The Smurfs” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” where imaginary characters cross over to modern-day America — just infinitely more clever. Instead of using the premise as a setup for slapstick, Gerwig shows Barbie defending herself when some random guy slaps her butt, getting a knuckle sandwich in return.

At the same time Barbie is experiencing her rude awakening, Ken’s busy filling his empty head with all the possibilities that “patriarchy” entails. In Barbie Land, Ken’s job is a deliberately ill-defined afterthought (basically, just “beach”), whereas in the Real World, dudes rule — an idea he takes back to Barbie Land with pointedly absurd results, brainwashing all the women into behaving like obedient housewives. The film’s draggier second half gets both silly and unabashedly strident, as Stereotypical Barbie seeks help from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), a damaged-goods doll with singed hair and messed-up makeup who serves as this girly-girl world’s Morpheus-like sage.

It’s upsetting (in a useful way) to see Barbie confronted with the overnight impact of rampant patriarchy, a concept that has rarely looked more off-putting than the frat-boy fantasy caricatured here. Think of it as the misogynist alternative marketed by old-school beer commercials, the polar opposite of Mattel’s mid-’80s “We girls can do anything. Right, Barbie?” campaign. While the Barbies plot to take back the government, Gerwig gives all the Ken dolls an over-the-top musical number, “I’m Just Ken,” which is so amusingly self-involved it risks subverting the very point the movie’s trying to make. If “Barbie” is all about centering and celebrating women, why let Ken steal the show?

Gosling is a good sport to play the slightly predatory, sartorially helpless pretty boy, as the spray-tanned ex-Mouseketeer parodies his popular “hey girl” persona, flexing both his muscles and a range of facial expressions all but lacking from his recent work. If Robbie’s Barbie sets an impossibly high bar for young women, then Gosling’s Ken reps an equally formidable male model, with his chiseled abs and cheekbones.

That factor hasn’t escaped Gerwig, who sets out to disrupt such unattainable aesthetic standards, calling out ways the doll’s idealized design can harm self-esteem and encourage eating disorders. She crams most of that critique into a single motormouthed monologue, which drew cheers at the premiere and which, on closer inspection, contains not a single controversial idea. In the end, the trouble with “Barbie” isn’t that it goes too far, but that it stops short, building to a conceptual scene between Barbie and her Creator (Rhea Perlman) that inadvertently underscores one of the movie’s few failings: It’s an intellectual experience, not an emotional one, grounded largely in audience nostalgia.

It’s kind of perfect that “Barbie” is opening opposite Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” since Gerwig’s girl-power blockbuster offers a neon-pink form of inception all its own, planting positive examples of female potential for future generations. Meanwhile, by showing a sense of humor about the brand’s past stumbles, it gives us permission to challenge what Barbie represents — not at all what you’d expect from a feature-length toy commercial.

Reviewed at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, July 9, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 114 MIN.

Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation of a Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment, NB/GG Pictures, Mattel production. Producers: David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Robbie Brenner. Executive producers: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Ynon Kreiz, Richard Dickson, Michael Sharp, Josey McNamara, Courtenay Valenti, Toby Emmerich, Cate Adams.
Crew: Director: Great Gerwig. Screenplay: Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach, based on Barbie by Mattel. Camera: Greig Fraser. Editor: Rodrigo Prieto. Music: Nick Houy.
With: 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, Dua Lipa, Helen Mirren

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Review: With Robbie in pink and Gosling in mink, ‘Barbie’ (wink-wink) will make you think

A woman smiles in front of a mirror inside a pink doll house

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Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” an exuberant, sometimes exhaustingly clever piece of Mattelian neorealism, opens with an extended, heavily trailer-spoiled homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” We’re at a drab early moment in the history of the toy industry; for too long, little girls everywhere have had only their sad, uninspiring baby dolls to play with — until now, at this fateful dawn-of-mannequin moment. Hello, dolly! But really, hello, Barbie, played by Margot Robbie with a megawatt grin and impeccable coiffure, modeling a black-and-white swimsuit and towering over the primordial landscape on skyscraper legs. She’s a marvel of (anatomically incorrect) engineering, a citadel of plasticine perfection and, to judge by her immense popularity, a major evolutionary leap forward.

Whether or not Barbie has ever represented an advance, of course, has been fiercely debated since Ruth Handler created her in 1959. Did Barbie, with her can-do spirit and variegated career possibilities, offer young girls a positive model of be-whatever-you-want-to-be womanhood? Or did her bombshell proportions and impossible chest-to-waist ratio entrench the kinds of cruelly unforgiving beauty standards that second-wave feminism was just beginning to interrogate?

Decades later, conversations around female self-image, representation, agency and empowerment have shifted, to say the least, as have personal and public attitudes toward Barbie herself. She has been attacked and defended, dismissed as a punchline and reclaimed as a pioneer. She has diversified with the times (new races, new body types and, as always, new clothes). In recent years, she’s also experienced plummeting sales and a diminished cultural profile, which of course explains why — after countless small-screen animated Barbie movies, series and specials — she now has a live-action theatrical feature to call her own.

(l-r) Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie in 'Barbie.'

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Really, though, that explains this movie only in part. Whatever you think of “Barbie,” the mere existence of this smart, funny, conceptually playful, sartorially dazzling comic fantasy speaks to the irreverent wit and meta-critical sensibility of its director. (It also owes something, I suppose, to Mattel’s willingness to endure some modestly scathing satire in the pursuit of ever-greater profits.) Working again with her co-writer, Noah Baumbach (“Mistress America,” “Frances Ha”), Gerwig has conceived “Barbie” as a bubble-gum emulsion of silliness and sophistication, a picture that both promotes and deconstructs its own brand. It doesn’t just mean to renew the endless “Barbie: good or bad?” debate. It wants to enact that debate, to vigorously argue both positions for the better part of two fast-moving, furiously multitasking hours.

A blond woman in a striped bathing suit standing in a stark, prehistoric landscape

The case for the Barbie defense is presented by the Barbies themselves. There are a lot of them walking, talking, dancing, doing the splits and consuming nonexistent meals in the groovy pinktacular paradise that is Barbie Land, where life is a beach party by day and a dance party by night. The Barbies dwell in sisterly harmony and blissful self-fulfillment, each with her own meticulously furnished Barbie Dreamhouse and endlessly colorful wardrobe. Each one also has her role to play, whether she’s President Barbie (Issa Rae), Dr. Barbie (Hari Nef), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney) or even Mermaid Barbie (Dua Lipa), popping up from behind some delightfully fake-looking ocean waves. (If you’ll permit a “Barbenheimer” joke, I must point out the existence of Emma Mackey as Physicist Barbie, who presumably discovered the secrets of nuclear fuchsian.)

Tiptoeing into the spotlight on perfectly arched feet is Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie, whose self-mocking name and lead-heroine status are a handy example of Gerwig’s have-it-both-ways attitude. Although surrounded by Barbies (and Kens, but more on them later) of various shapes, sizes and colors, Stereotypical Barbie is Barbie: white, blond and svelte, in line with our earliest, most lasting impressions of the doll formally named Barbara Millicent Roberts. To say that Robbie is perfectly cast is an understatement (her surname alone could be a Barbie/Roberts portmanteau), though that very perfection underscores the movie’s problem: Can you really call out and perpetuate a stereotype at the same time? Would it have been better — more daring, and also more interesting — to tell the story from a less classically molded Barbie’s perspective?

Perhaps that possibility will be taken up in future visits to what is already being mapped out as a full-blown Mattel cinematic universe. For now, this early adventure generates more than enough goodwill to sustain your curiosity and suspend, or at least temporarily overwhelm, your reservations. Drawing on the breathless narrative velocity and sly comic mischief she showed in her sparkling recent adaptation of “Little Women,” Gerwig maintains a delirious but remarkably coherent onslaught of gags, twists, ideas, non sequiturs (Michael Cera! Matchbox 20!) and scholarly bits of Barbie arcana — all of it swirling like a merry comic tornado around the serene center of gravity that is Robbie’s captivatingly sincere performance.

Three men in headbands striking a sporty pose

Like Amy Adams as a fish-out-of-water Disney princess in “Enchanted,” Robbie takes an archetype long dismissed as an airheaded caricature and, moment by deeply felt moment, teases and fleshes her out. With her radiant smiles and goofy-graceful physicality, she inhabits Barbie’s glamour and entitlement as effortlessly as she inhabits her hot-pink bell bottoms. But she also gradually punctures those upbeat vibes with tremulous notes of vulnerability and premonitions of disaster, right around the time her Barbie notices a patch of cellulite and begins having incongruous thoughts of death.

These intimations of mortality, which I wouldn’t have minded hearing about in even gnarlier detail, suggest cracks in Barbie’s psyche, but also in Barbie Land’s very foundations. To explain further would risk giving away the strange metaphysical rules that govern Barbie Land, its fantastic-plastic inhabitants and their tricky relationship to the real world. And that real world is ultimately Barbie’s destination, a place she sets out for in search of answers, not realizing that her own attention-starved Ken has stowed away in her little pink Corvette.

Ah yes, Ken. There are several Kens in this movie, all of them amiable second-class citizen hunks of Barbie Land, played by actors including Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans and Ncuti Gatwa. But Gosling, as the neediest, most pathetically insecure Ken of the lot, rises to delicious new levels of actorly self-mockery. Sporting a platinum dye job that never fails to match his denim cutoffs, ’90s neon workout gear, pastel-striped beachwear and luxurious mink coat (sold separately), Gosling scores the expected laughs about Ken’s fashionista vanity , ambiguous sexuality and all-around preening petulance. But what makes him more than just another smooth-chested punchline is one of Gerwig’s deftest satirical touches: As it turns out, it doesn’t take long for a dude with serious self-esteem issues to open a Pandora’s box of patriarchal oppression.

Los Angeles, CA - June 26: Actor Ryan Gosling and director Greta Gerwig, photographed in promotion of their latest film, "Barbie," at the Four Seasons hotel, in Los Angeles, CA, Monday, June 26, 2023. Gosling plays "Ken," Barbie's boyfriend, in Barbie Land and he joins her in visiting the human world. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

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For toxic masculinity, though unheard of in Barbie Land, is of course alive and well in the real world, as Barbie and Ken are initially shocked to learn when they arrive on the sunny streets of Los Angeles. Here, women aren’t respected, let alone placed on polymer pedestals; they’re ogled, objectified, sidelined and worse. And to hear it from an angry teenager named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), Barbie herself deserves her share of the blame, being a tool of “sexualized capitalism” that “set the feminist movement back years.”

That’s the case for the Barbie prosecution, in a nutshell, and as you might expect, it isn’t allowed to go unchallenged. Sasha’s attack is the first of the script’s two big throw-down scenes; the second is a rousing feminist cri de coeur delivered by Sasha’s mom, Gloria (a winning America Ferrera), who’s on hand to temper her daughter’s scorn, emphasize Barbie’s enduring multigenerational appeal and remind us that, yes, you can love women and love Barbie too. It’s a hugely effective monologue, calculated for maximum applause and likely to get it. But “Barbie’s” feminism, something it wears proudly on its sequined sleeve, seldom needs such emphatic dramatic underlining to register.

The movie is at its best when it’s simply leaning into its own fast, funny, free-floating goofiness, whether it’s letting Kate McKinnon do her thing as a self-explanatory Weird Barbie, pitting multiple dancing Kens against each other in a hypnotic dream ballet, or throwing in a coconutty reference to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” I could’ve done without the filler-ish comic subplot featuring Will Ferrell as Mattel’s CEO, a mostly toothless bit of corporate ribbing that nonetheless does lead to a visually striking chase sequence through a maze of office cubicles, cleverly staged as a riff on Jacques Tati’s classic “Playtime.”

Gerwig’s wide-ranging movie love serves her well here; there’s something fitting and finally moving about the way Barbie’s journey of self-discovery takes her through a glittery funhouse of cinematic allusions. If Barbie Land can’t help but evoke the creepily self-contained utopia of “The Truman Show,” Barbie’s entire quest unfolds like a kind of reverse “Wizard of Oz,” in which she ends up leaving a trippy Technicolor dreamscape and traveling to a humdrum, grayed-out reality rather than the other way around. You might sense echoes of those films during this movie’s strange, beguiling final moments, and perhaps a callback to “2001” too. The evolution of Barbie continues.

'Barbie'

Rating: PG-13, for suggestive references and brief language Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes Playing: Starts July 21 in general release

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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Movie Review
This Barbie is a feminist parable fighting to be great in spite of Mattel’s input

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is often good and sometimes great, but it always feels like it’s fighting to be itself rather than the movie Warner Bros. and Mattel Films want.

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

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A smiling, blond woman standing with her arms outstretched in front of a group of girls who are facing her. The woman is wearing a cowboy hat, a neckerchief, a denim vest, and jeans — all of which are hot pink.

Barbies might “just” be toys, but Barbie™ is an impossibly perfect paragon of glamorous femininity who’s had as many specialized professions over the course of her 64-year-long existence as she has bespoke outfits. There are few pieces of corporate-owned IP that are truly as Iconic (in the pre-social media sense of the word) as the doll that put Mattel on the map and taught children of all genders — but especially little girls — to long for hot pink dreamhouses. That’s why it isn’t all that surprising to see Mattel Studio’s brand protection-minded influence splashed all over Warner Bros.’ new live-action Barbie movie from writer / director Greta Gerwig.

Valuable as the Barbie brand is, it makes all the sense in the world that Mattel would want Gerwig’s feature — a playful, surreal adventure that does double duty as a deconstruction of its namesake and her technicolor, dreamlike world — to play by a set of rules meant to protect their investments. But as well meant as Mattel’s input presumably was, Gerwig clearly came with a bold vision built around the idea of deconstructing some of the more complex realities of what Barbie represents in order to tell a truly modern, feminist story.

Watching the movie, you can often feel how Mattel and Gerwig’s plans for Barbie weren’t necessarily in sync and how those differences led to compromises being made. Thankfully, that doesn’t keep the movie from being fun. But it does make it rather hard to get lost in the fantasy of it all — especially once Barbie starts going meta to poke fun at the studios behind it in a way that seems to be becoming more common .

Along with celebrating innumerable pieces of Mattel’s history, Barbie tells the story of how the most Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) in all of Barbie Land gains the tiniest bit of self-awareness one day and starts to find her growing sense of complex personhood so alarming that she sets off for the Real World to find out what the hell is going on. Like the vast majority of Barbies who call Barbie Land home, all Stereotypical Barbie knows about her own world is based on the picture-perfect, idealized experiences she and her friends are able to breeze their ways through solely using the power of their imaginations.

Things don’t just happen to Barbies. They’re very much the arbiters of their own wills who’ve worked hard to become people like President Barbie (Issa Rae), Dr. Barbie (Hari Nef), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney), and Pulitzer Prize-winning Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp). But life for Barbies also isn’t especially difficult or complicated, partially because they’re all dolls living in a plastic paradise. Mainly, though, it’s because Barbie Land’s an expressly woman-controlled utopia reminiscent of Steven Universe ’s Gem Homeworld , where neither misogyny nor the concept of a patriarchy exists because that’s not what Barbie™ is about.

As an unseen Helen Mirren — who seems to be playing a version of herself as Barbie ’s narrator — points out who’s who in the film’s opening act, you can see how Mattel’s willingness to let Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s script poke fun at Barbie™ led to some extremely good world-building.

Barbie Land isn’t just a predominantly pink pocket dimension where Life-Size -like dolls live in life-sized, yet still toy-like dream homes. It’s the embodiment of the easy-to-digest, corporate-approved feminism and female empowerment that Mattel and many other toy companies deal in. Only in Barbie Land, the idea of a predominantly female supreme court or construction sites full of nothing but hardworking women aren’t just dreams — they’re a regular part of everyday life. And all the Barbies are better for it because of how it reinforces their belief that they can do anything.

But outside of the Stereotypical Barbie-obsessed Ken whose job is to stand on the beach (Ryan Gosling), none of the other Kens (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, and John Cena) are ever really given personalities to speak of. It’s clearly a purposeful decision meant to reinforce the idea that Ken dolls, which were invented after Barbie dolls, are the Eves to their Adams — accessory-like beings created to be companions rather than their own people. But as solid as the idea is, in practice, it has a way of making the Kens of color feel like thinly-written afterthoughts hovering around Gosling and like Barbie isn’t sure how to utilize its entire cast — a feeling that intensifies more and more as the movie progresses.

Long before Barbie even starts to have her existential crisis and seek guidance from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), it becomes painfully clear that there was a strong desire on either Mattel or Warner Bros. parts for audiences to be spoon-fed as much of the film as possible before actually sitting down in theaters. If you’ve watched even a couple of Barbie ’s lengthier ads or the music video for Dua Lipa’s (who plays Mermaid Barbie) “Dance the Night,” you’ve seen a significant chunk of this film and its more memorable moments.

What you’ve seen less of is how often Barbie slows down to have characters repeat jokes and belabor points as if it doesn’t trust the audience to catch beats on their initial deliveries. Some of that can be attributed to the PG-13 movie trying to make sure that viewers of all ages are able to engage because as existentially heavy and slightly flirty as Barbie gets at times, it’s a movie about Barbies, which is obviously going to appeal to a bunch of literal children. But once Barbie’s in the real world being harassed by lascivious men, ruthless teen girls, and a bumbling, evil corporation that the movie goes to great lengths to make fun of, you also get the sense that more than a bit of the movie’s unevenness on the backend stems from Mattel putting its foot down about how it, too, needed to be a part of Barbie’s live-action, theatrical debut.

There’s a time and a place for corporations to try getting in on the fun of events like this by way of meta humor that acknowledges their own existence and the role they play in bringing projects like movies about Barbie dolls into being. But rather than creating the necessary conditions for those kinds of jokes to land, not need explanation, and add substance to Barbie, both Mattel and Warner Bros.’ self-insert jokes work more to remind you how the movie is ultimately a corporate-branded endeavor designed to move products.

That doesn’t keep Gerwig’s latest from being an enjoyable time spotlighting a decidedly inspired performance from Robbie. But it is going to make the rabid Barbie discourse even more exhausting than it already is when the feature hits theaters on July 21st.

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What’s the Matter With Barbie?

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a charming blockbuster adventure about the tribulations of simply existing as a woman in society.

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Life in Barbie Land, the utopian pink paradise that’s home to life-size versions of every Barbie doll that has ever existed, is one long party. Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) wakes up in her dream house every morning, hangs at the beach all day with the other Barbies and many admiring Kens, then hosts a girls’ night that’s one long choreographed dance sequence. It is a life of prescribed joy, a brand-managed universe where nothing is ever allowed to go wrong and Barbie’s perfectly arched heels are never allowed to touch the floor. Which is what makes it particularly funny when she, mid-dance, asks aloud, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” Record scratch.

So begins the action of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie , a blockbuster adventure that bakes a big Mattel-branded cake and tries to eat it too, poking fun at the political limitations of America’s most famous doll while also giving her a believable hero’s journey. Combining the meta jokiness with a heap of motivational sincerity is no easy task, but Barbie is a very charming success, an odyssey of self-improvement for a plastic idol whose reason for being is to never change, to always be the same perfect ideal. As with Gerwig’s previous two movies—the wildly successful Lady Bird and Little Women —it’s a clever meditation on the nightmarish puzzle of simply trying to exist as a woman in society, only with more Day-Glo outfits.

Initially, it seems that Barbie will be following a formula set by other movies about brands, such as The Lego Movie and Sonic the Hedgehog , where a character from the brand world crosses some dimensional barrier into our own, blunders around, and tries to reckon with the depressing mundanity of reality. As Robbie’s Barbie (her full name is Stereotypical Barbie, to distinguish herself from the Barbies with jobs like Doctor or President) is made to wrestle with her existential angst through a sequence of dramatic events, she is tasked with a quest to the real world to figure out what’s wrong with her.

Barbie’s favorite Ken (Ryan Gosling) tags along, partly in support, partly because his only function in life is to be near her. Whereas Barbie is the object that Barbie Land revolves around, Ken is distinctly lacking in purpose, repeatedly remarking that his job is designated simply as “Beach”—not lifeguard, not even swimmer. He’s just Beach Ken, forever standing on the sand in his board shorts, a smile frozen on his face. Gosling’s performance hilariously illuminates the shallow but intense anguish of the purposeless action figure, a sort of Toy Story psychodrama given flesh and blood (though Barbie does make it clear that she and all her friends have only featureless bumps where their genitals would be).

Read: Can Barbie really have it all?

If you have even a tiny question about the rules of Barbie Land and how it coexists with our reality, please drop it. Gerwig, who co-wrote the film with her partner and frequent collaborator, Noah Baumbach, is not too hung up on the rules of transit between universes—just know that it’s somehow doable for Barbie and Ken to hop between environments with ease. What’s more crucial is that, when faced with our world, Barbie must contend with twin horrors: the realization that life for women is not the manicured, you-can-do-anything dream advertised by Mattel’s products, and that many real-world women in fact resent her for representing an impossible standard.

It would be very easy for this self-referential gambit to fall flat on its face: Barbie’s limits as an icon of feminism have been widely discussed since her launch, in 1959. Mattel’s deep involvement with the film also seems like a creative sinkhole that’d be difficult for Gerwig to overcome, no matter how hard she strives to wink at the audience. But by placing Barbie on our glum planet and forcing her to reckon with her purpose, Gerwig does somehow dig up some real profundity. Remove Stereotypical Barbie from Barbie Land and plonk her into Los Angeles, and she’s just another woman struggling to find meaning in a world that’s inherently hostile to her very presence. Her real-life avatar turns out to be Gloria (a lovely performance from America Ferrera), a Mattel employee who is racked with similar doubts about 21st-century womanhood.

Ken, meanwhile, encounters a world that affirms and supports him (or at least the hunky male body he occupies), which fills him with a radioactive sense of empowerment. This is where Barbie ’s meta cleverness actually intersects with real plot stakes: Gerwig smartly realizes that whereas a real-life Barbie would face only skepticism and critique, Ken is the ultimate empty vessel just waiting to be filled up with nonsense. But Barbie never descends into a cheap girls-versus-boys final showdown; it just reckons with the different ways self-image gets sold to us, the weary, willing consumer, even as the world grows savvier and more cynical. That it does so through bright musical numbers, acidic quips, and the right scoop of sentimentalism is all the more impressive. Barbie is knowing, but it still has an optimistic twinkle in its eye about how its protagonist might move past other people’s projections of her. After all, there’s no crisis that can’t be solved with a good dance party.

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Barbie review: Welcome to Greta Gerwig's fiercely funny, feminist Dreamhouse

The Barbie movie could’ve been another forgettable, IP-driven cash grab. Instead, the director of Little Women and Lady Bird has crafted a neon pink delight.

Devan Coggan (rhymes with seven slogan) is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. Most of her personality is just John Mulaney quotes and Lord of the Rings references.

When Warner Bros. announced plans to launch a Barbie movie, the entire premise sounded a bit like a game of Hollywood Mad Libs gone wrong: Quick, name a beloved indie director ( Greta Gerwig !), an unadapted piece of intellectual property (Barbie dolls!), and an adjective (neon pink!). Every new piece of information that trickled out on the (lengthy) press tour seemed stranger than the last. Gerwig ( Lady Bird , Little Women ) cited 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gene Kelly musicals as her biggest inspirations. Elaborate dance numbers were teased. Ryan Gosling gave a lot of quotes about something called " Kenergy ." What actually was this movie, and could it possibly live up to all that hot pink buzz?

The verdict? Never doubt Gerwig. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker has crafted a fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure that dares you to laugh and cry, even if you're made of plastic. It's certainly the only summer blockbuster to pair insightful criticisms of the wage gap with goofy gags about Kens threatening to "beach" each other off.

The film (in theaters this Friday) whisks viewers away to Barbie Land, a candy-colored toy box wonderland of endless sunshine. It's there that our titular heroine ( Margot Robbie ) spends her days, each just as magical and neon as the one before. There are always other Barbies to party with — including Doctor Barbie ( Hari Nef ), President Barbie ( Issa Rae ), and Mermaid Barbie ( Dua Lipa ) — as well as an endless supply of devoted Kens, led by Gosling's frequently shirtless boy-toy. It's a plastic paradise for Robbie's Stereotypical Barbie, the type of doll that immediately comes to mind when you think of Barbie.

But something's gone wrong. Her Malibu Dreamhouse malfunctions; her mind is clouded by un-Barbie-like thoughts of death; and her perfectly arched feet now fall flat on the floor. So, our heroine sets out to seek some answers from Barbie Land's pseudo mystic, Weird Barbie ( Kate McKinnon ), who says a rift has opened up between their world and the real world, and she must brave the long trek to Los Angeles to find the human playing with her doll to remedy the situation. You bet her ever-loyal Ken (Gosling) is coming along for the ride.

Once Barbie and Ken begin roller-blading around L.A., however, they both realize that they've essentially entered a mirror dimension. Where are the female presidents, the CEOs, the astronauts? Barbie was supposed to empower young girls to dream big, but she hasn't had the feminist effect she anticipated — and in fact, she might have made things worse. Gerwig tackles the doll's complicated legacy head on, exploring how Barbie's reputation here isn't one of leadership or creativity but of corporatized objectification. Barbie herself is horrified, facing crude comments and misogyny for the first time in her (plastic) life. But to Ken, this newfound idea of patriarchy is intoxicating, and he quickly enters a spiral of masculinity, luxuriating in trucks, cowboy hats, and the addictive thrill of power.

Gosling has already scored praise for his earnest himbo performance, and in truth, he steals the show. For an actor who's spent much of his career brooding moodily (see: Blade Runner 2049 , Drive , First Man ), here, he finally gets to tap into his inner Mouseketeer , dramatically draping himself at Barbie's feet or breaking into a shirtless power ballad called "I'm Just Ken." His Ken has very little going on inside his brain, but his heart is brimming with emotion: love and admiration for Barbie, a longing for masculine validation, and a wide-eyed curiosity about the world around him.

Robbie still remains the real star of Barbie . Physically, the blonde Australian actress already looks like she stepped out of a Mattel box (something the film itself plays on during one particular gag), but she gives an impressively transformative performance, moving her arms and joints like they're actually made of plastic. Robbie has brought a manic physicality to previous films including Babylon and Birds of Prey , but she now embraces physical comedy to the max. (At one point, she face-plants on the floor, limbs askew like a toy dropped by a toddler.) As Barbie begins to discover more about the real world, Robbie's performance gradually shifts to become more human. One of the most moving moments comes about halfway through the film, as Barbie perches quietly on a park bench, silently observing the humans around her.

If the film has a flaw, it's that Barbie and Ken are so delightful that their real-world counterparts feel dull by comparison. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt play a frazzled mother and her sardonic teen daughter, who've drifted apart over time. Ferrera fills her days at her boring Mattel office job by doodling alternative Barbies, ones that are plagued by cellulite or haunted by thoughts of death. Her feminist daughter is dismissive of everything Barbie represents, dressing down Robbie with a pointed sneer. Ferrera admirably delivers one of the film's biggest emotional speeches, but surprisingly, the human characters never feel quite as lived-in as their plastic doll companions.

Still, Barbie works hard to entertain both 11-year-old girls and the parents who'll bring them to the theater. Gerwig co-wrote the script with her partner and longtime collaborator Noah Baumbach , and the entire screenplay is packed with winking one-liners, the kind that reward a rewatch. The fear is that Hollywood will learn the wrong message from Barbie, rushing to green-light films about every toy gathering dust on a kid's playroom floor. (What's next, The Funko Pop Movie? Furby: Fully Loaded? We already have a Bobbleheads movie , so maybe we're already there.) But it's Gerwig's care and attention to detail that gives Barbie an actual point of view , elevating it beyond every other cynical, IP-driven cash grab. Turns out that life in plastic really can be fantastic. Grade: A-

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‘Barbie’: A candy-colored confection of knowing humor and bitter irony

Greta gerwig’s meta-movie asks: is the famous mattel doll a contradictory cultural touchstone or just a fun, nostalgic toy (the answer is yes).

How do you solve a problem like Barbie?

For six decades, the iconic Mattel doll has been the vessel for our aspirations, ambivalence, endless analysis and outright hostility. Beloved by generations of girls and women who played for hours with Barbie and her pals Ken, Midge, Skipper and Allan, using the impossibly proportioned “play-size” version of grown-ups to spin their own life narratives, Barbie is just as despised for perpetuating the worst of an inherently sexist culture, from her simultaneously desexed and hyper-sexualized physique to representing feminism at its most commodified and co-opted.

Is Barbie a vexingly contradictory cultural touchstone or just a fun, nostalgic toy? A vessel for self-expression and agency or an empty totem of sham liberation? Yes! says Greta Gerwig in “Barbie,” wherein the “ Lady Bird ” and “ Little Women ” director has a psychedelically, if occasionally uneven, good time trying to have it all ways.

16 ways we think about Barbie

In this hot-pink mess of a movie, we see Barbie in nearly every incarnation, from Stereotypical Barbie (played by Margot Robbie with a winning combination of sweetness and self-awareness) to President Barbie (underused and reliably amusing Issa Rae), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney), Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon, with her hair sheared off and her face marked up) and a flotilla of others, living together in Barbie Land, a delightfully gynocentric cul-de-sac community of sisterly support and undeferred ambition.

“Thanks to Barbie, all the problems of feminism and inequality have been solved,” coos Helen Mirren, who narrates “Barbie’s” clever “2001: A Space Odyssey”-inspired introduction. As Robbie’s Barbie performs her morning ablutions in her legendary Dreamhouse — taking an imaginary shower, drinking imaginary milk, floating down to the first floor without the benefit of the staircase Mattel forgot to give her — it’s clear that Gerwig’s “Barbie” will be a whipped confection of canonical faithfulness, knowing humor and bitterly pointed irony.

The combination mostly works, with a few exceptions. Pulling from such inspirations as “ The Truman Show ” and “Toy Story,” Gerwig — who co-wrote the script with Noah Baumbach — plunges her heroine into an existential crisis brought on by a dimly perceived real world that is encroaching on her plastic, reassuringly monotonous idyll. The plot of “Barbie” centers on Barbie — who’s inexplicably beset by thoughts of mortality and disappointment — setting out to find the person who’s been playing with her, so that the two of them can get back to their baseline of just dressing up and … dressing up again. Ken, her blond, bland maybe-boyfriend played by Ryan Gosling with flawless Malibu-era fatuousness, insists on coming along for the ride. “What if there’s beach?” he pleads when Barbie demurs. “You’re going to need someone professional to help with that.”

How Barbie primed us for a life of conspicuous consumption

The running gag in “Barbie” is that Ken’s job is “beach,” and Gosling leans into that superficiality with lunkheaded charm. Once they enter the real world — also known as present-day Los Angeles — the two dolls discover a weird mirror image. In Barbie Land, Ken comes to life only when Barbie looks at him; here, the gaze is all male, all the time: When it’s directed at Ken, it’s admiring, but when it’s directed at Barbie, it’s leering and predatory. While Barbie pursues her quest, Ken discovers a universe where men are in charge — an exhilarating new order vaguely involving trucks, beer, unlimited political power and horses. Lots of horses.

Barbie’s and Ken’s twin consciousness-raisings make for some genuinely hilarious set pieces in “Barbie,” which doesn’t hesitate to throw a little side-eye at its corporate sponsor. (Will Ferrell plays a smarmy Mattel executive with feckless gusto.) Most of the film’s funniest moments belong to Gosling, who along with his fellow Kens (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and others) morphs into an obnoxious, mansplaining dude-bro. (Only the perpetually sidelined Allan, portrayed by Michael Cera with adroitly subtle timing, doesn’t go Full Frat House.) Gosling commits to the bit throughout Ken’s radical makeover — up to and including a surreal Malibu Beach war that rivals the “Top Gun” volleyball scene for homoerotic camp and a dream ballet featuring Gosling singing a note-perfect power ballad called “I’m Just Ken.”

It all gets very meta in “Barbie,” to the point that, when Barbie is observing that no real woman could ever live up to her own idealized image, Mirren interjects to note that Gerwig might have reconsidered having Robbie deliver that particular line. Mirren might also have added that an entire cinematic language has developed around similarly distorted expectations: There’s a moment early in the film, when Barbie drives by a Barbie Land movie theater, that eerily resembles Robbie’s Sharon Tate cruising 1970s LA in Quentin Tarantino’s “ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood .”

The zaniness of “Barbie,” combined with Gerwig’s interest in skewering the patriarchy, sometimes makes the movie a baggy, tonally dissonant viewing experience. But for the most part, she achieves a pleasing balance between the silly and the serious; she makes sure to pay homage to some of Barbie’s most cherished accessories and costumes, all the while keeping up a running commentary on sexism, objectification, consumerism and the double-triple-quadruple bind in which women have historically been forced to navigate the world — while wearing attractive heels. (Gerwig surfaces subversive notions like “Cellulite Barbie” and “Crippling Self-Doubt Barbie”; at one point, she creates an ad for “Depression Barbie,” complete with a family-size bag of Starbursts and binge-watching PBS’s “Pride and Prejudice.”)

Those grievances come to a head in one of “Barbie’s” many speeches, this one delivered by a Mattel executive assistant named Gloria (America Ferrera), who connects the aspirations, ambivalence, endless analysis and outright hostility we’ve heaped on Barbie to the aspirations, ambivalence, endless analysis and outright hostility that weigh down real-life women. Given the hyperventilating anticipation greeting “Barbie,” one could extend that pressure to Gerwig’s movie, which despite its cheery mix of Day-Glo visuals, retro wardrobe, cheesy backdrops and winking laughs, sags into feeling more like a lecture than a lift.

Viewers who have nurtured a loving if complicated relationship with Barbie might feel seen by the end of the film. Whether they’ll feel satisfied is another question entirely — especially when it comes to the film’s letdown of an ending, which was no doubt perfect on the page but lands with a deflating, didactic thud. Then again, that gnawing sense of ambivalence was no doubt precisely what Gerwig’s “Barbie” was aiming for. “It gives you a lot to think about,” a male audience member was heard to remark after a recent screening. He didn’t mean it as a compliment. Mission accomplished.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains suggestive references and brief strong language. 114 minutes.

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Barbie Review: The Year's Best Film Is an Ode to Womanhood

It's hard to imagine anyone but the most jaded viewer would be disappointed by Barbie .

The hype for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie , hitting theaters this week, has been beyond huge and almost impossible to live up to. Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone but the most jaded viewer would walk away disappointed.

Gerwig is a filmmaker who loves women and, even though it comes with a lot of baggage, loves being a woman. That was evident in her previous films Lady Bird and Little Women , and once again, is made abundantly clear in Barbie . It’s truly a movie for anyone who has ever loved being a woman or loved women.

The main plot of Barbie follows one Stereotypical Barbie (a transcendent Margot Robbie) who starts to experience glitches in Barbieland that include thoughts of death, morning breath, existential dread, and worst of all, flat feet. She’s sent to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who tells her she can stay blissfully in Barbieland or go to the real world and learn what it’s like to be a girl and a woman there.

As she and her Ken (a pitch-perfect Ryan Gosling) explore the real world with its patriarchy, sexism, aging, and problems, she meets a woman who works at Mattel (America Ferrera, the heart of the film) and realizes that maybe a world where everyone is a perfect Barbie or Ken isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

One of Barbie 's most powerful messages comes in its views on womanhood. The film regularly reminds us that these Barbies are not women, they’re dolls. And Barbie is keenly aware of the effect she’s advertised as having on girls. So when our main Barbie gets to experience life as a woman in the real world for the first time, she learns a lot about the subject she thought she knew most about.

This new discovery of the width and depths of womanhood comes with both happy and sad moments, and ultimately, the movie is about knowing what womanhood entails and still choosing to be a woman in the world — and knowing that that is a beautiful thing.

This is a message that will deeply resonate with trans women, as Barbie’s first encounters in the real world with cat-calling, misogyny, sexual harassment, and a world ruled by men is something we all remember from our first times out in public. In the end, if Barbie is a woman, she’s a trans woman.

The movie perfectly balances humor and blockbuster drama. It has very moving messages about womanhood, self, and even life and death that will leave you teary, but it also has more than a few moments that will leave you cackling with delight.

The entire cast of Barbies and Kens is absolutely perfect, as are Michael Cera as Allan and Emerald Fennell as Midge. Issa Rae, Hari Nef , Alexandra Shipp , Kingsley Ben Adir, and Scott Evans as a series of Barbies and Kens provide some of the film’s funniest moments.

Gosling is perfectly cast and becomes the Platonic Ideal of Ken in Barbie , but the movie really belongs to its two female leads. Robbie is truly one of the greatest actors of her generation and certainly deserves her third Oscar nomination for stepping into the iconic doll's high-heeled shoes. And Ferrera, who plays the mother of a middle school girl who connects with Barbie, has many of the movie’s most moving scenes and will have you cheering.

The relationship between Barbie and Ferrera’s character is also delightful, with the two making a perfect pair. Viewers would be forgiven if they thought the movie was a romance between the two women, since the husband of Ferrera’s character isn't seen until the final act of the film and only gets about one minute of screen time. Ultimately, the film is a love story between the two women.

Every single Barbieland set and piece of clothing that the Barbies and Kens wear is immaculate, and even if the story didn’t hold up, Barbie would be one of the best visual spectacles of the year.

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Can Barbie Have Her Cake and Eat It Too?

What’d Beyoncé say? “ You know you that Barbie when you cause all this conversation. ” First reactions to Greta Gerwig’s wildly anticipated technicolor fantasia slash existential comedy slash Mattel commercial are in, and they, like the Lady Bird and Little Women director’s own works, are filled to the brim with ideas. The main through-line in much of the early reviews concerns just how revolutionary a film can be if it’s based on existing IP, produced by that IP’s corporate daddy, and successfully marketed after 18 months securing brand deals and devising an advertising blitz . The film stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken , both of whom expertly carry the production, and charts their travels from Barbie Land to the real world when the former doll starts to think about dying. Her dawn of consciousness sets of a chain of events that finds the pair grappling with our own misogynist society, women’s empowerment, and a metacommentary on the toy brand. “The trouble with trying to sneak subversive ideas into a project so inherently compromised is that, rather than get away with something, you might just create a new way for a brand to sell itself,” Vulture critic Alison Willmore says of the attempts to inject socially conscious ideas in the two-hour-long Mattel spot. Below, what critics thought about Barbie .

“There’s a streak of defensiveness to Barbie , as though it’s trying to anticipate and acknowledge any critiques lodged against it before they’re made, which renders it emotionally inert despite the efforts at wackiness. To be a film fan these days is to be aware that franchises and cinematic universes and remakes and other adaptations of old IP have become black holes that swallow artists, leaving you to desperately hope they might emerge with the rare project that, even though it comes from constrictive confines, still feels like it was made by a person. Barbie definitely was. But the trouble with trying to sneak subversive ideas into a project so inherently compromised is that, rather than get away with something, you might just create a new way for a brand to sell itself.” — Alison Willmore, Vulture

“The victory that is Gerwig, Robbie, and Gosling — along with a supporting cast and crew that revel in the idea of joining a benefic Barbie party — slipping in heady notions about sexualization, capitalism, social devolution, human rights and self-empowerment, under the guise of a lucrative, brand-extending trip down memory lane? That’s enough to make you giddy.” — David Fear, Rolling Stone

“However smartly done Gerwig’s Barbie is, an ominousness haunts the entire exercise. The director has successfully etched her signature into and drawn deeper themes out of a rigid framework, but the sacrifices to the story are clear. The muddied politics and flat emotional landing of Barbie are signs that the picture ultimately serves a brand.” — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s a movie that sits at an interesting inflection point in moviemaking and movie consumption, when almost every idea seems born from a pre-existing product. While it’s easy to balk at — and believe me, I have; many, many times — the truth is, the tension between filmmaking and commerce has and always will be present in the work itself, be it a broad Hollywood blockbuster or the most idiosyncratic and Terrence Malick–y of endeavors. Something like Barbie lays that tension bare and exposed in its unabashed commercialism and heightened sensibilities, so that you can’t not think about how its aims may be at odds with its execution.” — Aisha Harris, NPR

“It’s kind of perfect that Barbie is opening opposite Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer , since Gerwig’s girl-power blockbuster offers a neon-pink form of inception all its own, planting positive examples of female potential for future generations. Meanwhile, by showing a sense of humor about the brand’s past stumbles, it gives us permission to challenge what Barbie represents — not at all what you’d expect from a feature-length toy commercial.” Peter Debruge, Variety

“ Barbie , when it comes down to it, is a coming-of-age film. While Gerwig’s excitable direction and the film’s eye-popping set design easily distract from its central message, Barbie ’s sincerity shines through. Its message may be a bit simplistic and delivered in feminist platitudes, but like anything covered in glitter and jewels, it’s a bit easier to sell. Some may call Gerwig a sellout, but she’s the one who hid a moving, emotional journey of self-discovery inside a toy commercial.” — Hoai-Tran Bui, Inverse

“ Barbie never descends into a cheap girls-versus-boys final showdown; it just reckons with the different ways self-image gets sold to us, the weary, willing consumer, even as the world grows savvier and more cynical. That it does so through bright musical numbers, acidic quips, and the right scoop of sentimentalism is all the more impressive.” — David Sims, The Atlantic

“Gerwig does much within the material’s inherently commercial parameters, though it isn’t until the finale — capped by a sharply funny, philosophically expansive last line — that you see the Barbie that could have been. Gerwig’s talents are one of this movie’s pleasures, and I expect that they’ll be wholly on display in her next one — I just hope that this time it will be a house of her own wildest dreams.” — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Most of the film’s funniest moments belong to Gosling, who along with his fellow Kens (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and others) morphs into an obnoxious, mansplaining dude-bro.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

“Opuses can and will be written about Sarah Greenwood’s production design and Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. Barbie is a lovingly crafted blockbuster with a lot on its mind, the kind of feature that will surely benefit from repeat viewings (there is so much to see, so many jokes to catch) and is still purely entertaining even in a single watch.” — Kate Erbland, IndieWire

“The movie is at its best when it’s simply leaning into its own fast, funny, free-floating goofiness, whether it’s letting Kate McKinnon do her thing as a self-explanatory Weird Barbie, pitting multiple dancing Kens against each other in a hypnotic dream ballet, or throwing in a coconutty reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail . I could’ve done without the filler-ish comic subplot featuring Will Ferrell as Mattel’s CEO, a mostly toothless bit of corporate ribbing that nonetheless does lead to a visually striking chase sequence through a maze of office cubicles, cleverly staged as a riff on Jacques Tati’s classic Playtime .” — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“Never doubt Gerwig. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker has crafted a fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure that dares you to laugh and cry, even if you’re made of plastic. It’s certainly the only summer blockbuster to pair insightful criticisms of the wage gap with goofy gags about Kens threatening to ‘beach’ each other off.” — Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

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Barbie Review

21 Jul 2023

The soundscape that sweeps through the opening moments of Barbie –wind and something slightly magical, yet slightly sinister – transports you to a collective memory before you’ve seen even a hint of pink plastic. It’s instantly reminiscent of The Wizard Of Oz , ahead of meeting another hero with magic shoes and her scarecrow with a six-pack. It promises nostalgia, grandeur, and a little darkness. The film delivers so much else.

Helen Mirren’s wry narration sets the scene with a satirical flourish. As an exquisitely detailed world of startling pink, purple and aquamarine unfurls, she explains that the residents of Barbieland have solved sexism. Barbie can be anything, and so of course women can also be anything. Then why, under a disco ball on another perfect night, is Barbie contemplating death? She must travel to the real world and find her human to find out, with Ryan Gosling’s clingy Ken along for the ride.

It’s a thrill to see Robbie and Gosling effortlessly riding the film’s comedy highs and existential lows

Here ends the fundamental plot of Barbie . There are other elements that fall into the conventions of a studio summer film: a corporate bigwig (Will Ferrell) is trying to get Barbie back in her box; a tired mother (America Ferrera) is trying to reconnect with her surly teenage daughter (Ariana Greenblatt). Yet at every available opportunity Greta Gerwig and her co-writer Noah Baumbach grab their pastel crayons and scrawl them – all at once – over the lines.

Above all else, it’s painfully funny. Barbie’s journey of self-discovery is often derailed by surreal skits and arch asides. Robbie – who has been dialling it up to 11 since Harley Quinn – is hilarious, but the most consistent scene-stealer is Mr. Blond Fragility. Gosling submerges wholeheartedly into Ken’s insecure psyche as he moves from Barbie’s sidepiece to patriarchal poster boy. Every muscle flex, every hair flick, every guitar strum lands perfectly. There are moments where he will rob you of breath.

There are minor casualties as a result of Barbie ’s many spinning plates. Blink and you’ll miss some of the vast and vibrant ensemble cast, and while the screenplay masterfully subverts recent Hollywood attempts at feminism – especially for a film that is at surface-level 99.9 per cent pink – at times it falls short, reminding us that yes, this is still a toy movie.

Yet where Gerwig can draw us away from the Mattel towards the meta, she does. Now firmly in her big studio-directing era, she has dreamt up a (literal) playground for her stars to run amok in, and it’s a thrill to see Robbie and Gosling effortlessly riding the film’s comedy highs and existential lows, which land with unfaltering, surprising sincerity. Like its glossy protagonist, Barbie is a film that refuses to be boxed, permanently moving the bar on what a popcorn movie can achieve. It may not be Oz, but we’re certainly not in Kansas anymore either.

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'Barbie' PEOPLE Review: Margot Robbie Is a Doll for the Ages but Ryan Gosling Steals the Movie

'Barbie' opens in theaters Friday

Tom Gliatto reviews the latest TV and movie releases for PEOPLE Magazine. He also writes many of the magazine's celebrity tributes.

Warner Bros.

One of the most anticipated movies of the past year, director Greta Gerwig’s subversive comedy fantasy Barbie —starring Margot Robbie as the Mattel doll—is finally here, and it triggers a truly radical thought: Ken has stolen the film.

That may not have been what Gerwig, Mattel or Warner Bros. had in mind with this bright-pink extravaganza, but Ryan Gosling is flawlessly funny as the plastic male who exists only as a sort of chaste, chisel-chested consort to Barbie.

In Barbie’s heady but over-intellectualized script (by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach), Ken tags along when Barbie journeys to real-world Los Angeles. Dressed in a cowboy uniform that suggests either Toy Story's Woody or Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, he learns that men still seem to hold most of the power, and returns to Barbie Land with visions of establishing a new patrimonial order.

Now favoring a faux fur coat that makes him look like a surfer pimp, he moves into Barbie's Dreamhouse and reduces the whole Barbie line to subservient, man-obliging nitwits who don’t mind pretending to enjoy a mansplained screening of The Godfather.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Ken is a sexist, a fascist and still pretty dumb, but he’s also fully realized psychologically. He’s the closest a toy will ever come to Raging Bull . Gosling hits the precise middle note between flesh and plastic. But, of course, the movie is really about Ken’s other, better half, played by Robbie with a radiant sweetness that might have worked better with a bit more satiric bite ( Amy Schumer was to have starred in a much earlier incarnation).

Barbie is a very clever attempt — perhaps an exceedingly clever attempt — to breathe new meaning and significance into the doll. But this isn’t often distinguishable from an attempt to subvert the conceptual and marketing genius that have made Barbie, with her melted-lozenge figure and fashion-accessorized careers and lifestyles, the most recognizable doll in civilization and a controversial feminine fantasy figure.

Warner Bros.

These contradictory impulses, to reinterpret Barbie with a degree of teasing reverence or simply to pull her apart, tussle throughout the movie from the first scene, a joke inspired by 2001 : An enormous Barbie, as tall and vertical as that film’s black monolith, appears before a society of girls playing with baby dolls.

This Barbie (we’re told by Helen Mirren, who narrates from time to time) will lead girls to a new level of imaginative play — from now on they’ll engage with a doll who can represent the women they will grow up to be. And yet this Barbie, who looks as if she could have upheld the roof of the Parthenon, is somehow also monstrous and alien, a Mattel goddess banishing the competition. If Gerwig depends on pop-culture memory to connect Barbie and the 2001 monolith, it's only fair to say that you might also be reminded of the killer doll in Squid Game . (And doesn't 2001 end with the image of a glowing astral fetus — the ultimate baby doll? But never mind.) It’s complicated.

At any rate, the narrative now introduces us to Barbie Land, a sort of Swiftian utopia — reference point: Jonathan Swift, not Taylor — where cute Barbies of all types are in charge, while a corresponding league of Kens (including Simu Liu) play on the beach and hope that someday they’ll feel empowered and validated by being acknowledged by a Barbie of their own. (The film all but forces you to talk in this sort of jargon.)

Everything is well, until Robbie’s Barbie begins having fleeting intimations of mortality, little oatmilk clouds in her coffee. Soon after that her feet flatten out and she develops a small but alarming patch of cellulite. These irrepressible death thoughts (as the film describes them) don’t make too much sense — does Paddington Bear worry about nonexistence? But this is the narrative Barbie must follow — she’s Gerwig’s plaything — and it’s why she travels into the real world.

She has a quest: To discover the girl whose sense of sadness, disenchantment and frustration may have caused her to play with Barbie in a hostile or degrading manner. (A hand just shot up in the back. Yes, you have a question? “I do, but it’s really more of an observation: Why shouldn’t a girl be allowed to play with a Barbie in a hostile or degrading manner? If a kid wants to feed a toy to the dog, or throw it out the window and into the birdbath, is that really a problem? Is Mattel trying to rewire our brains with Barbie care instructions?”)

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

The mingling of fantasy and reality in Los Angeles has some of the fun of Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo: Mattel’s male-dominated executive board (headed by Will Ferrell) panics at the prospect of what a human-sized, free-will Barbie will do to the company’s bottom line. He and his staff of suits try to capture her, put her back in her packaging — an enormous cardboard box — and return her to Barbie Land. (For the rest of your life you may not be able to see a Barbie in a store aisle without imagining her trapped in a bright little casket, airless beneath a lid of cellophane.)

The L.A. expedition also provides the movie’s most touching and emotional moments, as Barbie encounters humanity and, unlike Ken, warms to a world that offers a richer, more ambiguous form of happiness.

When she tells an old woman at a bus stop, “You’re beautiful,” the woman looks startled, then answers: “I know I am.” Gerwig handles these exchanges gracefully and simply, as if she had gone back to Louisa May Alcott and come up with Little Plastic Women . If only there had been more scenes like that. Robbie smiling through tears is an extraordinary thing to experience.

Meanwhile, the movie gears up for a strange, elaborate finale that has something to do with Ken’s determination to suspend the Barbie Land Constitution. It’s House of Cards Barbie! She outfoxes him, as you’d expect. But no summer movie should ultimately hinge on its heroine grasping the idea of “cognitive dissonance.” Again, it’s complicated.

At times you may wish the script had been handed to Paul Rudnick, with his sharp, neat sense of camp, absurdity and hypocrisy. Just google Addams Family Values, which he wrote, and “Malibu Barbie.” You’ll find an insane little disquisition, performed by Joan Cusack, that’s possibly as telling as all of Barbie.

Barbie opens in theaters Friday.

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How “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” Bring Monumental Figures to Life

By Anthony Lane

The new film from Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer,” starts and ends in the round. In the opening shot, ripples expand in puddles as raindrops fall. Three hours later, we get a vision of Earth beginning to burn, as nuclear explosions bloom across the globe. Nolan is always entranced by the vast and the tiny; “Inception” (2010), wherein city streets fold like paper under the pressure of dreams, concludes with a spinning top. This obsession with scale is well served by “Oppenheimer,” in which the amassing of refined uranium, for the construction of an atomic bomb, is indicated by marbles piling up inside a goldfish bowl. How much roundness can you take?

The antidote to this circularity is J. Robert Oppenheimer. (Though named for his father, Julius, he insisted, with Prufrockian nicety, that the “J” stood for nothing at all.) Lean, sticklike, skullish in his gauntness, and too clever for comfort—his own or anyone else’s—he has gone down in history as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, in New Mexico, where the bomb was built, and it is from history that Nolan seeks to pluck him. Oppenheimer is played by Cillian Murphy, who catches the quiet inquietude of the man, and his tobacco-softened speech. In the blaze of his blue eyes we see not candor but a kind of undimmed shock, as if he were staring straight through us at matters invisible to regular mortals. “What happens to stars when they die?” he says, by way of small talk, at a party in Berkeley. There he meets the incandescent Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh); later, at her bidding, he translates a Sanskrit text as they make love. For Oppenheimer, no talk is ever small.

The film is adapted from “ American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer ,” a 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. I hate to say it, but, if you zip through all six hundred pages of the book before seeing the film, you’ll enjoy the ride more. Much is omitted in the adaptation; there is no whisper, for example, of the fact that Oppenheimer was born into serious wealth. Yet Nolan, who wrote the screenplay, has a fine taste for the delicious detail. During a youthful sojourn in the Netherlands, Oppenheimer doesn’t just learn Dutch in six weeks. He learns enough to give a lecture on quantum physics. The irony is that what makes the movie challenging is not the scientific theory—which is delivered with a diplomatically light touch—but a glut of political paranoia.

Like “The Social Network” (2010), “Oppenheimer” is structured around two inquisitions, each of which is designed to load us with information and to trigger significant flashbacks. If, in the process, we feel dumb and dumber, tough. The first is a closed hearing, in 1954, at which Oppenheimer’s security clearance is revoked—an affront from which he never recovers. The revocation (which was not officially voided until last year) turns upon his left-wing sympathies before the war, but it has clearly been engineered by the F.B.I. and by certain figures who have Oppenheimer’s worst interests at heart. The second occasion is a Senate hearing, in 1959, that is held to confirm the appointment of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.) as President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Commerce. And what does that , you may wonder, have to do with blowing things up?

The answer is far from simple, and the tangle left me genuinely torn. The upside is that Downey, liberated from the stranglehold of Marvel, provides the least mannered and the most densely textured performance of his career. Polite, bespectacled, and immune to panic, Strauss—a chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission—comes across, in Downey’s rendering, as the most pitiless of Machiavels. The downside is that he all but commandeers the film. Even Oppenheimer’s marriage to Kitty (Emily Blunt), troubled but enduring, seems to flit by in snatches when set beside the enmity of Strauss, who believes that Oppenheimer has humiliated him. Addicts of Cold War conspiracy will be in bliss, but not everyone, I suspect, will thrill to the truffling up of former Communists in West Coast academia. Folks want some bang for their buck.

The bang is Trinity—the first detonation of a nuclear device, in July, 1945. The name was chosen by Oppenheimer, in tribute to a sonnet by John Donne. (For the complete poem, listen to the agonized aria sung by Oppenheimer in “Doctor Atomic,” John Adams’s 2005 opera.) The explosion, two hours into the film, reaches to the pure core of Nolan’s visual intensity. For once, in the midst of this talkative movie, the chattering dies down. Many observers, including Oppenheimer’s boss, General Leslie R. Groves (Matt Damon), lie flat on the ground. One scientist, confronting the blast, wears sunscreen and shades, as if he were at the beach. All music is finally hushed. The sole sound is human breathing, in and out. The clock counts down; time stops; then comes the flowering of fire.

It’s a hell of a sequence, and, as you might expect, it’s infernally beautiful to behold. Rising in the wake of such images is the issue of moral decorum: What can you, or should you, show? When slides of Hiroshima are projected at Los Alamos, some people look away, unable to countenance what their loyal efforts have wrought. Not a frame of this film is set in Japan; Nolan relies on his leading man to suffer the fallout in spirit. There are screen-filling closeups of Oppenheimer, who appears to be haunting himself. Now and then, the very space around him quivers in response, as if his tremors of conscience were giving off shock waves. (“That crybaby,” Harry Truman says of him.) The grandeur is tremendous, and yet, this being Nolan, it needs to be surrounded with the little things. When Groves is searching for someone to oversee the creation of the bomb, he walks into a classroom for his first meeting with Oppenheimer and, to his face, calls him theatrical, egotistical, and unstable. Oppenheimer smiles. He gets the job.

What’s the difference between Greta Gerwig’s previous movie, “Little Women” (2019), and “Barbie,” her latest enterprise? Well, one is based on a book by Louisa May Alcott, and the other on a well-thumbed classic toy by Mattel. (I won’t spoil things by saying which is which.) Also, if memory serves, Jo, Beth, and the other girls didn’t spend that much time on fluorescent Rollerblades. Their loss.

Powering the new film is the idea that there’s a magical place called Barbie Land, which is home to all the Barbies, not least the Barbie (Margot Robbie), who is proud to describe herself as “stereotypical.” She sleeps in a heart-shaped bed, in a house that lies so brazenly open for inspection that J. Edgar Hoover would moan with delight. Being a doll, Barbie kicks off her day with a dry shower, has her breakfast without consuming it, and floats down to ground level rather than taking the stairs. The dominant, not to say overbearing, hue of her existence is pink. Watching the first half hour of this movie is like being waterboarded with Pepto-Bismol.

Barbie has a male chum, Ken (Ryan Gosling), though he wishes he were more than that. “We’re girlfriend-boyfriend,” he tells her, running the words together into a single unit. Smooth. They can’t have sex, although a showing of “Team America: World Police” (2004) might give them some handy tips. Still, they can party every night. All is well until Barbie starts having thoughts of death, whatever that may be; bewildered, she consults Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who lives on a hill, does the splits, makes a case for being “sad and mushy and complicated,” and proposes a trip to reality.

What we have here, in short, under layers of stylization, is a standard-issue journey of discovery. Barbie, with the uninvited yet eager Ken in tow, follows the pink road like a shrimp-colored Dorothy, travelling not from Kansas to Oz but from Barbie Land to Los Angeles. There she meets a teen-ager named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother, Gloria (America Ferrera), one of whom is or was Barbie’s owner; if Barbie is feeling depressed or messed up, it’s because of them. By a helpful coincidence, Gloria works at the headquarters of Mattel. “Barbie in the real world—that’s impossible,” she says, summarizing the hook of the film and, incidentally, echoing the hero of “Oppenheimer,” when he learns that German scientists have split the atom. “That’s not possible,” he says. (I was hoping that he’d shout out “Fission: impossible!” but you can’t have everything.)

A further similarity: just as Downey threatens to pull Nolan’s film out of orbit, so, in “Barbie,” does Gosling attract a dangerous share of the dramatic energy. His line readings keep taking you by surprise; a late-night solo dance, outside Barbie’s house, has a mournful shimmy; and he is the beneficiary of Gerwig’s most inspired joke, which is that Ken, in California, discovers—and totally digs—the patriarchy. “I’m just going to pop into the library and see if I can find some books on trucks,” he says. He then spirits that leathery masculinity back into Barbie Land, which he rechristens Kendom. He fights with his fellow-Kens, plays guitar not to but at Barbie, and (this has to be peak Gosling) pauses in mid-conversation with her to smirk at the bulge of his own biceps.

All of which is tricky for the balance of the story, but, then, the entire movie, like Barbie when she ditches her high heels, struggles to find its footing. The membrane between the two arenas, the true and the fantastical, grows so porous as to be meaningless; not only are Gloria and Sasha imported into Barbie Land but so is the angry C.E.O. of Mattel (Will Ferrell), plus a gang of his corporate henchmen. “Barbie” is, in every sense, all over the place. Because it’s “A Mattel Production,” as the opening credits inform us, it wants to have its cake, eat it, mock it, smear it on the faces of the manufacturers, and still sell a shitload of dolls—or, as a recent piece in the Times suggested, “drive near-infinite brand synergies,” the sort of phrase that makes me want to move to Bhutan and raise goats.

“Barbie” is fun, no question, yet the fun is fragmented. You come away with a head full of bits: interruptions that are sprinkled over the plot like glitter. Moping Barbies tend to watch the BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice” for the seventh time, we hear, whereupon the screen fills with a clip of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Wackier still is a scene in which Barbie complains of no longer being pretty; a voice-over (Helen Mirren) butts in to point out that hiring Margot Robbie to play unpretty is poor casting. This earned a laugh when I saw the movie, but you have to ask: Who’s it for? Will young girls return to the film again and again, as they did to “Frozen” (2013)? If so, what will they make of the dialogue, with its mentions of “sexualized capitalism,” “rampant consumerism,” and “cognitive dissonance”? How will they react when Sasha addresses Barbie as “you fascist”?

Maybe the movie is for Greta Gerwig. And, by extension, for anyone as super-smart as her—former Barbiephiles, preferably, who have wised up and put away childish things. Nobody else would even attempt to meld a feminist colloquium with a plug for a chunk of plastic, and, if the result is a deep disappointment after “Little Women,” perhaps depth is the wrong thing to ask for. Think of the kid in Charles Baudelaire’s essay “The Philosophy of Toys,” who shakes and bangs a toy in exasperation, before finally prizing it open. “ But where is its soul? ” Baudelaire says, adding, “This moment marks the beginnings of stupor and melancholy.” Sometimes the shiny surface is enough. Or, as Barbie’s beau would say, Kenough. ♦

An earlier version of this article misquoted a line from “Oppenheimer.”

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Barbie (2023) Review

Reclaiming a plastic paradise lost.

With a brand as recognizable as Barbie , the titular character’s debut on the big screen could have gone any number of ways. Mattel and Warner Brothers could have easily gone for a safe but paint-by-numbers approach, ensuring an easy ROI without any real cinematic merit.

Directed by Greta Gerwig ( Lady Bird ) and written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach ( Marriage Story ), Barbie is an experience that tactfully embraces and reveres its brand in a movie that will delight children and adults alike. Even a grown man(child) like myself—who has no affinity with the popular toy brand (despite owning an armada of toys and collectables )—found the movie thoroughly entertaining, funny and most important of all, meaningful, in an honest and tangible sense of the word.

Margot Robbie plays the iconic but bog-standard Barbie. The film opens on her character, larger than life, among young girls who have grown bored of their baby dolls, gravitating towards the more alluring and fashionable Barbie , in a scene that plays tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey , which sets the tone of the rest of the movie’s 1-hour 54-minute runtime.

Audiences get a quick info dump that effortlessly setups the universe of Barbie . It can essentially be broken down into the acknowledgement of the Real World, along with a bubble-like (blister pack?) society in which all Barbies, past and present, reside, along with their Ken doll equivalent. This is aptly called Barbieland , which, consequentially, is the in-universe by-product of Mattel Inc (think Black Mirror but more pastel).

After a short but delightful musical sequence reminiscent of any Bollywood film worth its salt, Barbie ( Margot Robbie ) has an existential crisis that causes her to lose her toylike plasticity, eventually forcing her to go to the real world in the hopes of turning back into her perfect, off-the-shelf-self. Of course, A Ken doll who suffers from an extreme form of co-dependency ( Ryan Gosling ) follows Robbie’s character to the real world, where the two discover the truth behind gender disparities.

“Without delving into spoilers, Barbie’s surprise star is, without a doubt, America Ferrera , whose character plays a vital role in realizing Barbie’s core mantra.”

Barbie features some heavy themes for a property based on a children’s toy for young girls. Fortunately, the film handles all of its more serious notes in a manner that doesn’t feel like they’re trying to make Barbie “woke” or overtly and deliberately all-encompassing.

Ken-adian stars Ryan Gosling and Simu Liu play the two most prominent Ken dolls. Like Robbie’s Barbie, the actors wholeheartedly seem to be enjoying themselves. They put on a great performance that does an excellent job of keeping the movie fun throughout.

Without delving into spoilers, Barbie’s surprise star is, without a doubt, America Ferrera , whose character plays a vital role in realizing Barbie’s core mantra. This is that anyone can be Barbie and that individualisms and feminity are core pillars of any contemporary society, even a plastic one.

“Outside of a well-paced narrative, Barbie’s colour palette beautifully brings to life everything that is Barbie…”

Outside of a well-paced narrative, Barbie’s colour palette beautifully brings to life everything that is Barbie, with set pieces and elements found within Barbieland itself feeling like scaled-up replicas of actual doll houses. There is a stark contrast between Barbieland and the Real World depicted in the film that feels similar to the dichotomy found in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor y. Even in some instances, feeling better realized due to the source material being actual children’s playthings come to life, which itself should come with an air of rigidity and fakeness.

The film’s script also reflects this disparity of ideas and motifs, with Barbie often breaking the 4th wall, directly addressing the film’s writers and the talented cast itself, ultimately making for an unpredictable but thoroughly enjoyable ride.

Barbie pushes Barbie forward while paying homage to the iconic legacy created by Ruth Handler’s beloved toy line in an overall package that can exist outside the toy store, being a real source of inspiration for young people everywhere.

Final Thoughts

Zubi’s been gaming since the 16-bit era but really fell in love with it after discovering the RPG genre. Outside of RPGs he also enjoys everything from platformers to VR vomit enducers, just as long as the visuals catch his eye. When not writing about games, Zubi enjoys drawing and buying games he will never get around to playing

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, CGMagazine may earn a commission. However, please know this does not impact our reviews or opinions in any way. See our ethics statement.

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Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Live-Action Movie: What We Know So Far

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Revealed Robbie in a cover story with British Vogue , “Right, it comes with a lot of baggage! And a lot of nostalgic connections. But with that come a lot of exciting ways to attack it.” Here's what we know about the doll drama so far.

When will the film release?

Barbie hits theaters on July 21, 2023. Warner Bros. announced the news with a first look at Robbie in character, covered in pink.

The Warner Bros. project was first announced in 2019, but numerous other projects—and, not to mention, a pandemic—have kept Gerwig and Robbie busy in the interim. Variety confirms that Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach would finalize the script after completing work on the Baumbach-directed 2022 film White Noise .

Who's playing Ken?

It was announced on October 22, 2021, that Ryan Gosling was in final negotiations for the role of Ken, the well-known romantic interest of Barbie and a wonderful choice for a leading man to star opposite Robbie. Apparently, Gosling initially rejected the role, saying he was too busy, but the delay in production lined it up with a free spot in his calendar. The news came after Gosling wrapped on the Russo brothers' Netflix film The Gray Man , acting alongside Chris Evans.

On June 15, 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures released a jaw-dropping first-look image of Gosling in the infamous role—with bleached blonde hair, a denim vest and a spray tan, no less. However, Gosling is not the only one playing Ken.

Who else is in the cast?

Barbie is a massive star-studded production featuring multiple Barbies, Kens, and humans. After long keeping character details close to the vest, the film shared its full roster on social media.

The doll cast includes: Robbie, Hari Nef ( Transparent ) as a doctor Barbie, Emma Mackey ( Sex Education ) as a Barbie with a Nobel Prize in physics, Dua Lipa as a mermaid Barbie, Ana Cruz Kayne ( Painkiller ) as a Supreme Court Justice Barbie, Sharon Rooney ( My Mad Fat Diary ) as a lawyer Barbie, Emerald Fennell ( The Crown ) as Midge, Issa Rae as a president Barbie, Kate McKinnon ( Saturday Night Live ) as the Barbie who’s “always in the splits,” Nicola Coughlan ( Bridgerton ) as a diplomat Barbie, Alexandra Shipp ( Tick, Tick...Boom! ) as an author Barbie, and Ritu Arya ( The Umbrella Academy ) as a Barbie with a Pulitzer.

The various Kens are portrayed by: Gosling, Kinglsey Ben-Adir ( One Night in Miami ), Scott Evans ( Grace and Frankie ), Simu Liu ( Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ), and Ncuti Gatwa ( Sex Education ). And there's Michael Cera as Allan.

The human cast includes: America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt (young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War ), Connor Swindells ( Sex Education ), Jamie Demetriou ( Fleabag , The Afterparty ), and Will Ferrell, who’s said to be playing the CEO of a toy company. Let's also not forget Dame Helen Mirren, who's taken the honorable role of narrator.

Other previous reports stated that Marisa Abela ( Industry ) and Rhea Perlman ( Cheers ) are also in the cast. Further details about the roles remain tightly under wraps.

What will the story be about?

Gerwig will pen the script with Marriage Story 's Baumbach, which means this won't be your typical toy-to-television adaptation.

“People generally hear ‘Barbie’ and think, ‘I know what that movie is going to be,’ and then they hear that Greta Gerwig is writing and directing it, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I don’t...,” Robbie told British Vogue .

After months—or honestly, years—of keeping mum, Robbie opened up slightly about the film's premise to Vogue . She said that when her production team pitched the idea to Mattell, they told the company, “We of course would want to honor the 60-year legacy that this brand has. But we have to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who aren’t fans of Barbie. And in fact, aren’t just indifferent to Barbie. They actively hate Barbie. And have a real issue with Barbie. We need to find a way to acknowledge that.”

To help Robbie get into character, Gerwig recommended listening to an episode of the podcast This American Life where a woman doesn't introspect. “You know how you have a voice in your head all the time?” Robbie told Vogue . “This woman, she doesn’t have that voice in her head.”

Vogue reports that the Barbie storyline is somewhat inspired by the 1994 book Reviving Ophelia , which Gerwig read as a kid, that details problems girls face when they enter adolescence. “They’re funny and brash and confident, and then they just—stop,” the director told the magazine. While writing the screenplay, she realized that the film would ultimately cover: “How is this journey the same thing that a teenage girl feels? All of a sudden, she thinks, Oh, I’m not good enough .”

Robbie trusted Gerwig, but she had a simple request before singing on. “I’ll follow your vision. Whatever you want this Barbie movie to be, let’s do that. Except I just have one favor,” she recalled telling the director on The Kelly Clarkson Show . “Please, please, please can we have a Dreamhouse where she has a slide that goes from her bedroom down to her pool, because that is my goal in life.” We get it.

Is production for Barbie over?

On July 16, 2022, a few members of the Barbie cast shared a celebratory photo to commemorate wrapping on the film. Both actresses Hari Nef and Sharon Rooney posted the picture to Instagram. The image included Gerwig as well as Robbie and America Ferrera from their last day on set, all yelling at the camera.

Also in the pic were Alexandra Shipp and Ana Cruz Kayne, plus a few other members of the studio ensemble.

“Barbie, a true gift,” Rooney wrote in the caption.

Greenblatt told ELLE of filming Barbie , “Everyone had such a great time making it, and it really shows on camera.” She added that while filming in London, Robbie and Gerwig arranged for the cast to screen films relating to Barbie every Sunday at Electric Cinema in Notting Hill.

What has Greta Gerwig said about the experience?

Gerwig co-wrote the screenplay as well as directing. In an appearance on Dua Lipa's At Your Service podcast post-production, Gerwig said it was actually a nerve-wracking choice to take on the Barbie project.

“It was terrifying. I think there's something about starting from that place where it's like, ‘Well, anything is possible!’” she said. “It felt like vertigo starting to write it. Like, where do you even begin? What would be the story?”

She continued, “I think it was that feeling I had that it would be really interesting terror. Usually, that's where the best stuff is. When you're like, ‘I am terrified of that.’ Anything where you're like, ‘This could be a career-ender,’ then you're like, ‘OK, I probably should do it.’”

The experience ended up being great, even working with the executives at Mattel, who have creative control over the doll fashion line.

“They have given us such trust and such freedom, and I think that is incredibly rare. Whatever we wanted to be, they did not try to micromanage it. I was very much supported in what I wanted to do,” Gerwig explained. “I usually know on a gut level whether something feels right.”

In July, she told Rolling Stone that Mattel was “incredibly open” to feminist critique because “it’s a lie any other way.”

“It felt like we had to give the counterargument to Barbie, and not give it short shrift, but give it real intellectual and emotional power,” she said. “And Mattel was incredibly open to it. I said, ‘We have to explore it, because it’s a lie any other way. And we can’t make it a lie.’ I think they heard it.”

Is there a trailer?

Finally, yes. Warner Bros. shared the first teaser for Barbie on December 16, featuring Robbie's arrival as the iconic doll. It's also a big visual and musical reference to the opening scenes of 2001 A Space Odyssey . “Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been...dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls. Until...” a voiceover says in the clip.

The footage ends with some blink-and-you'll-miss it glimpses of the over-the-top film, including cast members Ryan Gosling, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Issa Rae, and Simu Liu.

Another teaser followed on April 4, showing a bigger, colorful look inside Barbie Land and its multiple Barbies (including Robbie, Rae, Shipp, and Mackey) and Kens (like Gosling, Liu, and Ben-Adir). Michael Cera's Allan makes an appearance too. The eye-popping preview ends with Barbie driving towards the “real world” in her bubblegum pink convertible, only to find Gosling’s Ken has stowed away in the back seat, along with his neon roller blades. Watch below.

The main trailer, released on May 25, shows more of Barbie's excursion into the real world. All is going well in Barbie Land when she starts noticing that things are going awry: she falls off of her building and (gasp!) the eternal tip-toe-arches of her feet have gone flat, so she can no longer wear heels. Kate McKinnon's Barbie suggestions she goes into the Real World to find out what's going on. Once Robbie's Barbie arrives to her destination (with Gosling's Ken in tow), shenanigans ensue. Watch below. The trailer teases a new song by Dua Lipa, too.

And then in early July, a clip from the film was released that focused on Gosling's Ken recovering from a brief injury after trying to surf, even though his job is “beach.”

What songs are in the Barbie soundtrack?

Barbie the Album is also dropping on July 21, including a bunch of new and original songs from a variety of A-list stars, including Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj, Charli XCX, Karol G, Fifty Fifty, Haim, Ice Spice, and more. Ryan Gosling is in the track list too. Check out the list of artists below.

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Mattel's Israeli CEO among Time Magazine's '100 most influential people'

Ynon kreiz, the visionary leader of global toy behemoth mattel, and the mastermind behind the blockbuster barbie movie, has earned a coveted place on the list; his exceptional leadership has steered mattel out of a severe crisis.

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What to Watch: ‘Baby Reindeer,’ an Astonishing Stalker Drama

The Netflix series is based on the real-life experience of its creator, Richard Gadd, who also stars in the show.

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By Margaret Lyons

A man stands behind a bar and a woman sits facing him.

Richard Gadd created and stars in the mesmerizing, complex drama “Baby Reindeer” (on Netflix ), which is based on his experience of being stalked. Here he plays Donny Dunn, an aspiring comedian and miserable bartender, living with his ex-girlfriend’s mother and stewing in regret.

So one day when Martha (Jessica Gunning) sits at his bar, he feels bad for her — he sees a fellow wounded bird who deserves a moment of compassion. But Martha isn’t just a sad sack; she is a convicted stalker. Soon she is emailing Donny hundreds of times a day, harassing his family and his exes, showing up at gigs and outside his house. It’s relentless, it’s terrifying, it’s … flattering?

“Reindeer” is candid and disturbing, but not lurid. On lesser shows, nuance can play like a lack of conviction, but here it is the conviction, a rebuttal to pat victimhood narratives. It delves into the absolute pits of human experience not with a sage, well-adjusted perspective but with the mischievous bravado of a prop comic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (“Baby Reindeer” is adapted from Gadd’s solo show of the same title, which premiered at the festival.)

We see Donny’s act bomb and bomb and bomb; to be a comedian is often one big indignity. Donny recognizes and articulates the dangers of wanting fame, how it warps his judgment but also could solve his problems. (One person knowing your darkest secret is unbearable, but a million people knowing it is stardom.) Agony and attention are bound together here — Look at me! No, not like that! — twin snakes choking the life out of their prey. The show is relentlessly, fascinatingly compassionate, answering the questions of “why would you …” and “why didn’t he just …” with probing clarity. Everyone is shaped by suffering, their choices and identities carved by humiliations large and small.

The show is seven half-hour(ish) episodes, and they are the good kind of heavy.

SIDE QUESTS

If you want something autobiographical and introspective about masculinity but without the horrors of stalking, all three seasons of “Ladhood” are on Hulu and the Roku Channel .

If you actually love the horrors of stalking and want to add in serial murder and sultry whispers, all four seasons of “You” are on Netflix . (Only the first three are good.)

If you want another fabulous show that started out at Edinburgh, it is always a good time to watch “Fleabag.” Both perfect seasons are on Amazon .

Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter . More about Margaret Lyons

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BARBIE Stars Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Margot Robbie
Body-positive Barbie lands the cover of TIME magazine
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Barbie's New Makeover Lands Her the Cover of Time Magazine
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The Cast of 'Barbie' Covers Time Magazine

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Barbie (2023)

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Review: ‘Barbie’ is a film by women, about women, for women.

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‘Barbie’ Review: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling Compete for Control of High-Concept Living Doll Comedy

Peter Debruge

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Reviewed at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, July 9, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 114 MIN.

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Barbie Review: The Year's Best Film Is an Ode to Womanhood

It's hard to imagine anyone but the most jaded viewer would be disappointed by Barbie .

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