Barbie, one of the most anticipated movies of the summer of 2023, has finally taken its place in movie theaters after a crazy marketing campaign that has been impossible to escape in recent months, painting everything pink.
The project, which Mattel, the toy company that created Barbie, has been trying to realize for many years, after a few creative changes; It gained momentum when Margot Robbie first produced and then took the lead role, and it created high expectations when the director’s chair was entrusted to Greta Gerwig, who won our hearts with the films “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”. “Barbie” is basically a “product movie”, but thanks to Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, with whom she wrote the script, the movie manages to go beyond being a two-hour toy commercial.
The opening scene of the film begins the journey of Barbie, who has become an iconic figure since her production in 1959, with a clever, funny and precise reference. In a scene inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”, while all the girls are playing with their ordinary “dolls”, a doll in human form suddenly appears and literally changes history.
Barbie is a strong woman living alone. She’s nobody’s baby, kids don’t have to mother her. It could be a doctor, an astronaut, a Nobel laureate, or a President. He always has an extremely luxurious house, a car, and enough money to buy anything he wants. Her boyfriend, Ken, is a passive figure created only for her, who exists when she wants. In this world where Barbie is “everything”, Ken is “just Ken”.
Barbie, who solves all the problems of feminism in her own world (even though this is not a feminist world), thinks that everything works perfectly in the real world of the children she inspires. Therefore, the cliché Barbie brought to life by Robbie has nothing to worry about. Perfect days, each one the same as the other; He spends his time having fun with his other friends such as Doctor Barbie, Physicist Barbie and Ken, until thoughts of death come to his mind and malfunctions begin to occur in his perfect world and body.
To find the source of the problem, she visits Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who lives in a far corner of Barbie land. Weird Barbie, the most realistic Barbie of the movie, who was beaten by her owner in the real world, her hair was cut, and her face was painted with pencils, immediately diagnoses our Barbie with her experienced and wise personality and tells our Barbie that the problems she is experiencing are caused by the child who owns her in the real world. To continue his perfect life, he must go to the real world and find her.
This first act of the film is impressive with the wonderful details of Barbie land waiting to be discovered and the performances of all the actors who fully embrace the artificial figures they portray. It is possible to feel the cliché phrase “We had a lot of fun while shooting” in this movie. The fact that the actors are “in on the joke” increases the fun even more. Production designer Sarah Greenwood, who perfectly brought Barbie’s house and all her accessories, and all the details from the children’s play world to the film, and costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who prepared wonderful wardrobes for Barbie and Ken, also deserve a huge applause.
The movie begins to tell its main story when Barbie and Ken (Ryan Gosling), who secretly follows her, enter the real world. Ken makes the discovery of his life: Patriarchy! Unlike the world of Barbie, where Ken is nothing, in the real world the control is in the hands of men, and Ken loves the idea so much that he leaves Barbie alone in his struggle in the world and sets off to the land of Barbie to apply what he has learned. In the end, Barbie will be left with two worlds to fix…
Gerwig constructs her feminist narrative by reflecting the reality we live in through the eyes of Barbie and Ken, and continues to pin down the social roles assigned to women and men without losing the energy of the film. While Barbie is all about the image of the woman, Ken’s caricatured embrace of the idea of masculinity he acquired from the real world, and the image that the man gives to the man is also discussed.
Gerwig doesn’t reinvent worlds here, the entire feminist critique of the film is rather sanitized and predictable. But we should not forget that this is a studio film supported by Mattel. The so-called feminist ideas put forward by the Barbie brand are also criticized for not exceeding these obvious boundaries. Revealing the unhealthy world of Barbie’s imagination for women (and Kens), as well as the real world, the film comes to a self-exploratory, somewhat didactic end.
Still, that stumble at the end doesn’t hurt the energetic nature of the film. “Barbie” is a fun, feminist fairy tale that guarantees laughter for everyone – and the humor that aims to reach everyone has led to some clever jokes as well as some unsuccessful attempts to make people laugh. The performance of the players is the power source that makes it all work almost flawlessly.
Margot Robbie crowned her physical resemblance to Barbie with a great performance. She successfully reflects Barbie’s cliché characteristics and gives an extremely lively performance when she has to break them. Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, has reached a new high for himself. Comedy suits Gosling very well, as always, and he fascinates by being an exaggerated Ken until the end, with the freedom of playing a completely plastic character.
Barbie (2023)
Directed by: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Simu Liu, Helen Mirren, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell, Marisa Abela, Nicola Coughlan
Screenplay by: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
Production Design by: Sarah Greenwood
Cinematography by: Rodrigo Prieto
Film Editing by: Nick Houy
Costume Design by: Jacqueline Durran
Set Decoration by: Andrew Max Cahn, Dean Clegg, David Doran, Jordana Finkel, Clara Gomez del Moral
Art Direction by: Katie Spencer, Ashley Swanson
Music by: Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: July 9, 2023 (Shrine Auditorium), July 21, 2023 (United States)
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