As soon as “Barbie” got announced, I knew I was going to see it and absolutely love it. Then, as all the trailers started coming in, I only got more and more excited. Now, after seeing it, do I think it lived up to all the hype? Yes, I do. It was exactly what I wanted it to be, while constantly straying from what I thought a movie about Barbie dolls could do.
The Basics
The basic premise is simple: Barbie has to go to the real world to see what is going on with the child who is playing with her, as Barbie is starting to have dark thoughts and physical augmentations due to outside influence. Ken hitches a ride, and the two of them venture forth into the real world. That is as much about the story as I want to say, as there are so many fun surprises and twists and turns along the way, especially toward the end.
Margot and Ryan
The entire movie is fairly heavy-handed in the message it wants to send, but I think it works super well. It never feels bogged down by its moral code. Instead, “Barbie” spends its time whipping around a crazy plot and bombarding the audience with jokes and laugh-out-loud moments. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are perfectly cast in this movie, but Gosling steals the scene every time he is on the screen. He has his fair share of emotional moments but spends the majority of the film being the comic relief to Barbie’s more serious nature. I genuinely haven’t laughed this many times in a theater in a long long time, since I don’t even know when.
There’s Only One Allan
More than just Gosling being funny, the movie is crammed full of jokes for everyone. Everybody gets a moment to shine on the screen, and it makes every minor character feel slightly impactful. Especially Allan, who is played perfectly by Michael Cera in another one of his weird awkward guy roles — which really fits the tone. Also, it is full of references to other things, including a spoof of the opening scene of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” My dad and I were laughing so hard when we realized what was happening. The film also has a bizarre fascination with Robbie’s feet, à la “Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.” These references range from subtle to in-your-face, but they never feel unwelcome. The movie does a great job of dealing with serious issues, ranging from feminism to codependency and individual worth, but does so while maintaining the Barbie identity. Everything that takes place in BarbieLand looks amazing. It looks like a toy playset. The juxtaposition of that to the real world makes the differences between the two all the more apparent.
Right before seeing it, I had a few people tell me it looked like trash. They were so wrong. Definitely go and see this in the theaters if you can — it may not seem like a big-screen movie but it totally is.
