Review: ‘Barbie’ in the Metaverse

I was probably the only holdout who wasn’t much of a fan of Lady Bird or Little Women but I have to say I admire Greta Gerwig’s work on Barbie. It’s not perfect, obviously, but it’s full of life, hilariously funny in places, and has some great meta/fourth wall inserts I appreciated. It was also fun to see it with an enthusiastic crowd who applauded every scene and came out of the theater overjoyed, saying “That was SOOOO good!” The future belongs to them, not to me. I am fading fast. I do not intend to ruin theirs or anyone else’s good time. I’m happy if they’re happy.

There isn’t much left to say that hasn’t already been said in all the reviews, which are mostly positive to glowing. I promise it will get either an A or an A+ from CinemaScore and make a lot of money. Like a lot a lot of money. Nothing is going to slow it down, which might mean it’s a strong Oscar contender. Who knows. The Academy could do a lot worse than bringing the Barbie fans to the Oscars.

Very minor spoilers warning…

What I loved about the movie: the writing, the directing, and the Kens. The jokes are very sophisticated and Gerwig-like, and they keep things moving along, skimming the surface. We’re not really meant to take it seriously, they are telling us at least at first. Then, it takes a somewhat serious turn and this is the part I liked the least. It didn’t have to go that route and didn’t have enough character development to make it work.

The directing is a career-best for Gerwig and a big step forward. She’s great with the big canvas format like this and kept her vision for the film consistent throughout. It really does come from a vivid imagination that blends nostalgia with pop culture references and bawdy humor. Some of the dance numbers and set pieces are truly breathtaking. Obviously, the world inside of Barbie Land is much more interesting visually, but the performances, especially America Ferrera and Margot Robbie, keep the other half of the universe compelling.

The writing is funny enough, but especially with the throw-away lines for laughs. It doesn’t quite manage to distinguish between the various Barbie dolls who come off just like dolls that represent a type. Had they gone even further and joked about that part of it, it would have bloomed into full-blown satire. But maybe Mattel wouldn’t have liked it. Like if they joked about being trapped as a specific “type” and unable to break out of it, like a plus-sized Barbie who was frustrated because she wasn’t allowed to go on a diet, or whatever.

They would never do that, of course, because the message of the movie is meant to be that women love and accept themselves as they are. Well, all except Barbie herself who has manifested more of a self-hating Barbie. A Karen Barbie. The one everyone blames for their problems. She’s the protagonist yet ultimately she is not treated that way as she can’t be at the top of the hierarchy in 2023 without it seeming like “white feminism.”

Much will be made of America Ferrera’s damned if we do, damned if we don’t speech about the complicated job of just being a woman. It definitely rings true and might earn her a Supporting Actress nod. I thought it was a bit out of place with the story itself. Ferrera’s life didn’t seem so bad. We only saw her loving her job, with a happy married life — and yes, somewhat of a precocious bratty daughter but ultimately, that monologue only works if we see it in practice, but the only female character who has a hard time is Barbie.

Sidebar: how Barbie is treated in the real world does not indicate what the real world has become. Men don’t act that way anymore, not post-Me Too, especially not in Los Angeles, Venice, or Century City. This is the Land of the Woke, my friends. That ship has sailed. The cartoonish depiction of them weakens an otherwise smart and funny film. Why not just treat them like human beings — at least some of them? It’s funny up to a point, then it becomes downright surreal. To say the film is man-hating would be an understatement.

And that doesn’t strike me as Gerwig or co-writer Noah Baumbach’s intention. I just think it comes off that way in the final bake. But is the movie really saying men are only acceptable if they’re gay?  It’s no more fair to generalize an entire group of people just because they’re straight men than it is to generalize women, which this film also does. We are all individuals, right? Doesn’t the film try to make that point too?

But ironically, and unintentionally, the men end being far more compelling than the women who are depicted as ALL GOOD. ALL of them. Good and noble and smart and pure. The men, however, are allowed to be anything they want to be. That made it easy for Ryan Gosling to walk away with the movie.

Simu Lu was, I thought, one of the funniest people in the movie — I could watch a whole Barbie movie centered around his Ken, and of course, Michael Cera as Allan was, to me, one of the very best characters. So in a way, the film defeats its own purpose.

For a film that is supposed to be about feminism and amplifying women’s experiences, we’re drawn to the male characters because they’re more interesting. The women are boring because there is only one way to tell their story, they’re martyrs, they’re saints, they’re Gods. And therein lies the problem with how storytelling has been swallowed up by dogma. The story can’t deviate from the rules and so we always get more or less the same story told over and over again.

With those criticisms aside, it was a fun day at the movies, not just for me but everyone in the house. To see so many people out in force, excited about a movie like that, reminded me of what it was like to grow up as a movie kid. There were so many young women dressed up like Barbie with go-go boots and mini-dresses. Some even brought their Barbies with them. This is more than a movie. It’s a movement.