Photo:Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
One of the most anticipated movies of the past year, director Greta Gerwig’s subversive comedy fantasyBarbie—starringMargot Robbieas 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, butRyan Goslingis flawlessly funny as the plastic male who exists only as a sort of chaste, chisel-chested consort to Barbie.
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 ofThe Godfather.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Barbieis 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.
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: Whyshouldn’ta 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 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 withLittle 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’sHouse 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.
Barbieopens in theaters Friday.
source: people.com
