When I first heard they were making a movie based on Barbie, I felt it would bomb. Then, I heard that Greta Gerwig was directing co-writing along with her partner (and savior from a lifetime of character actor jobs as the best friend of the protagonist in big-budget movies) Noah Baumbach. Gerwig has never been one of those actors I have cared for and I don’t understand her popularity or her success.
Gerwig burst on the scene in 2006 as part of the Mumblecore movement, which began in the early 2000s and seemed almost like a South Park parody of the independent movies of the late 1980s and 1990s. Mumblecore movies are mostly forgettable. You might have found a one on a satellite TV listing and clicked to view the information and thinking, “Uh…no.” It’s probably no surprise with the failure of Blockbuster and Hollywood Videos, most of the movies went off into obscurity. Most of the filmmakers were mostly yuppie upper-class white directors who were the answers to whatever happened to those people in your philosophy classes from college who want to comment on every day’s lecture as much as they could.
Gerwig became famous because filmmakers thought, like they do with Mackenzie Davis, that she looks more natural, that must mean that she’s very talented. But Gerwig’s filmography as an actress is mostly forgotten in movies that even she wouldn’t watch unless she was in them. She did play real-life Nancy Tuckerman, social security to Jackie Kennedy played by Natalie Portman in the movie, Jackie.
And that’s probably as high up she would go. Hollywood is that way. I’m not trying to sound cruel or sexist. I’ve seen her in Greenberg, which Baumbach directed and co-wrote along with his then-wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, and nothing stood out. I had seen this character numerous times before. A lot of people had and Gerwig didn’t add anything to it except a very awkward oral sex scene between her and Ben Stiller. She was also in Baghead, a movie I watched despite the criticism. It’s co-directed by Mark Duplass, who along with Colin Jost and Ajit Pai, has one of the most punchable faces ever. (Hey, at least Jost admits it.)
So, it was only natural Gerwig would turn to directing. I refused to watch Ladybird because Gerwig cast someone worse than her in the lead – Saorise Ronan, who’s only claim to fame seems to be no one can pronounce her goddamned name correctly. Then Gerwig made yet another version of Little Women, which I think now is a rite de passage of woman directors. But still Gerwig could have been doing a “safe” movie with Barbie.
Hey, there’s no problem doing a “safe” movie. Bill Murray made Ghostbusters so Columbia would finance The Razor’s Edge. Christopher Reeve did Superman IV so the Canon Group would make Street Smart, which got more accolades for Morgan Freeman. Even Clint Eastwood had to make The Rookie so he could make White Hunter, Black Heart. Hollywood is about deals and movers and shakers.
So, Barbie could’ve been a fun litle comedy with Margot Robbie in the titular role. What could go wrong? A lot apparently. Robbie is just one of the Barbies in this movie. She plays what’s referred to as “Stereotypical Barbie” who lives in Barbieland in her dream house on a street with other Barbies in their dreamhouses. The set-up of Barbieland looks great like the sets in Barry Levinson’s 1992 movie Toys. But similar to that movie, the plot leaves a lot to be desired.
The movie sets it up from the start that they are just toys in a world. And you’re thinking – Wait, just a cotton-picking minute here! We’ve already seen this with Free Guy and The LEGO Movie. Yes, we have. And Will Ferrell also appears in the reak world as well, here playing the CEO of Mattell. (A popular fan theory says he is the same character from LEGO Movie.) Barbie has caught the eye of Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) but other Kens are vying for Barbie’s attention.
However, Barbie begins to have strange questions and one day her feet fall flat on the ground as she appears at the beach. (There’s so many references and images of feet in the first half hour, I’m almost certain Quentin Tarantino did uncredite rewrites.) Barbie is told to go talk with Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who says she must venture into the real world. Weird Barbie is a hilarious concept of what happens when young children play with their Barbie dolls the way Sid from Toy Story did. And why I like seeing McKinnon in this role, I wish Gerwig hired a different actress just to make it more of a surprise and payoff. McKinnon can do this type of role in her sleep with both hands tied behind her back.
And that’s the problem with this movie, you can guess where every scene is going almost from the start. Venturing into the real world isn’t too difficult as Ken stows away in the backseat of Barbie’s car as she listens to The Indigo Girls. I seriously doubt The Indigo Girls would ever exist in Barbieland. And they yadda-yadda-yadda make it to Venice Beach where the movie has some fun with them in the real world.
But I knew something was rotten in Denmark. They’re not in the real world too long before they go back into Barbieland. Actually Ken goes back first as he gets a taste of Century City and sees that men in the real world have it pretty good. The idea that the Kens are treated as inferiors and like woman in this reality is a noble theme the movie plays with perfectly. And there’s some fun as Gosling flashing his smile goes around thinking that since he’s a man, he can be a doctor or a big-time corporate executive.
Barbie discovers that her owner, Sasha (Arianna Greenblatt), got tired of playing with her dolls because they portrayed an unrealistic view of beauty. But Sasha’s mother, Gloria (America Ferrera), who is also a Mattel employee, began playing with the dolls again. And Gloria helps Barbie out and her and Sasha go back into Barbieland as the CEO and the executives, all men, are trying to capture Barbie. It never really makes any sense how they can easily pass from one world to the next.
But when they get to Barbieland, they discover that Beach Ken has turned the whole world upside down into a male-dominant society. This has raised some controversy with the movie but it doesn’t do enough with the concept. The Barbies (who were doctors, lawyers, writers, physicists and even President) now seem to be subservient to the Kens. Unfortunately, Gerwig and Bambauch do nothing with this.
They don’t examine why some women might be subservient. In Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde played a woman who knew she was in a simulation but was willing to play the subservient wife if it meant she had her children. WandaVision also examined certain themes and elements. Everything feels like it’s been done before. In Barbieland at the beginning, all the Barbies even those of high importance seem to live a laissez-faire lifestyle but so do the Kens to a degree.
Is this because Barbieland is a fantasy world where women aren’t in competition? When the Kens resort to more masculine macho ways, they seem to be more competitive. However, this is played poorly with an outrageous and totally out of place song and dance competition between Beach Ken and Rival Ken (Simu Liu poorly underused). This movie is so over the place it gets buried under a lot of concepts that it doesn’t explore thoroughly. I would’ve like to have seen more of Barbie in the real world and having to deal with real matters.
What if some of the Barbies wanted to remain more subservient to their Kens? By making Weird Barbie the one everyone turns to for questions, it just goes to fit a Hollywood stereotype that women characters have to be either very feminine and attractive or being eccentric and well, weird. In the end, the movie becomes one big preaching sermon about ending the patriarchy, which I think could’ve been handled better. I did like some of the jokes, such as how Barbie tells the other Barbies to feign interest of The Godfather to get their Kens’ attention.
And while building up Sasha and Gloria in the first half, they’re mainly nothing more than background characters in the second half. It could be that Gerwig can’t handle the big-star spectacular of a movie that had a budget of $128-145 million. I wasn’t too thrilled to see the movie from the time I heard of its inception but I felt the first half could’ve been the demo of a better movie. It felt fun and lively despite a tired concept.
Robbie is a delight to see as Barbie and her ability to do comedy effectively just goes to show how great her talents are. She was the best thing (and there wasn’t much) about that first Suicide Squad movie. Even with a mediocre script and movie, she shines especially in the real world at first as she flashes a permanent smile that can brighten anyone’s day. I wouldn’t be surprised if she finds herself with an Oscar nomination. However, I can’t say the same for Gosling, despite some online chatter. He’s good at Ken and you can see the remnant of his Mickey Mouse Club days showing through. Gosling is actually good when given the right comedic material, such as The Nice Guys. He has fun as Ken but it’s a ho-hum role at best. Even if he does squeak by with a Best Supporting Actor nomination, he doesn’t deserve it, nor is it the best role of his career.
I think Barbie was the product of a good marketing campaign. A lot of people went to go see it the same reason Christians and conservatives went to go see Sound of Freedom or how they gourge themselves on Chick-fil-A everytime the fast food restaurant is in the news. It’s nice that the movie became a big success and has proved to Hollywood and the horrible David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, that movies don’t have to be just for 14-year-old boys.
However, I think comic and transgender activist Stacy Cay said it best when she compared the fandom along the lines of Ricky and Morty Fandom. A sequel is in the works yet I don’t think it will be as successful. This is a once in a lifetime movie.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 