It’s official: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a phenomenon. Earning over $1.2 billion (that’s billion with a b) in the box office, the film has broken all kinds of records. The promotion and publicity surrounding the film doused the world in hot pink. And stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are getting some deserved early Oscar buzz. Paired with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Barbie is required viewing. Attendees dress in shades of neon pink in honor of the legendary doll. All of the bubblegum, plastic glossiness, coupled with the pop-heavy soundtrack, gives the impression that the film is a buzzy, fizzy bit of light entertainment. It is that, but there’s so much more.
Entering Barbie one would be forgiven to assume that the film would be a parody. In fact the opening sequence that lampoons Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey captures a nutzo, bonkers tone, when we see a tribe of little girls start to smash their baby dolls in dissent, as Robbie’s Barbie looms over them, a beautiful monolith. We then see Barbie living in Barbieland, a pink utopia that operates as a poppy matriarchy in which the different versions of Barbie rule. (Gerwig’s script with Noah Baumbach does a neat thing of addressing all the jobs Barbie held throughout her existence by simply casting them as different Barbies). The Barbies live in this Elysian fantasy world with Kens – like the different Barbies, there are various versions of Kens who are seemingly there in support of the Barbies. The main Barbie we see is Robbie and her Ken is played to delirious perfection by Gosling. Barbie’s life with her other Barbie friends is days of living an ideal life, partying with her girlfriends, hanging out with Ken. Robbie’s Barbie is Stereotypical Barbie – the Barbie that is the default for most when they are prompted to imagine what Barbie looks like.
Barbieland has a female president (played with hilarious gusto by Issa Rae), and there’s a Nobel-prize-winning author Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), a brilliant scientist Barbie (Emma Mackey), a doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), and lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney, stealing her scenes). These Barbies run Barbieland, with an-all Barbie Supreme Court and the Kens live in bliss with their lady counterparts. All of the Barbies are thrilled and happy, except Robbie’s Barbie starts to feel some existentialist dread. It’s gradual at first: her tippy-toe feet suddenly fall into flat feet; she notices she has bad breath in the morning; her plastic-perfect world has minor inconveniences like spoiled milk and cold showers; she even notices a bit of cellulite. Seeking council from Weird Barbie (SNL comedienne Kate McKinnon, very funny), an outcast Barbie who has the scars and chopped hair of a doll that’s been played with too roughly. Weird Barbie is a wise sage and advises Robbie’s Barbie, letting her know that Barbieland is a parallel universe that exists in parallel with the real world in which little girls play with Barbie dolls. Robbie’s Barbie is experiencing these feelings of disquiet because ‘her’ little is suffering from similar anxieties, and Weird Barbie is now concerned that the membrane-thin border between the two worlds has been broached. Robbie’s Barbie has to travel to the real world and fix the issue.
So, with shades of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Barbie goes on a journey to the real world, Los Angeles, where she must confront a harsh reality – post-Trump America, in the midst of anti-feminist backlash. Ken joins her on this journey. When they make it to L.A., Barbie goes through a severe emotional overhaul, experiencing ugly, complex feelings, like crying for the first time. Unlike Barbieland, Los Angeles has the markers of the real world, including being catcalled and street harassed, as well as dismissed and reduced to her beauty. Also, Barbie believed that she was created as an inspiration for little girls everywhere, so when she’s confronted by ‘her’ little girl, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), a high school teen who hasn’t played with Barbies for years. Instead of being happy to see Barbie, she’s disgusted, delivering a withering monologue that blamed Barbie for decades’ worth of sexism, eating disorders, and unrealistic beauty standards.
Ken, on the other hand, is starting to notice patriarchy and unearned privilege. Feeling unfulfilled and unnecessary in Barbieland, he sees the testosterone-fuelled world in which men enjoy privilege and is enamored by this world – one in which men build networks for themselves that maintain these power structures that leave women out. Inspired, he swipes books on patriarchy and zips over back to Barbieland to make some changes.
Barbie, meanwhile makes her way to the Mattel headquarters and is confronted by an all-male executive team, including the CEO (Will Ferrell). Urged to return to Barbieland, Barbie escapes, fearing that the CEO and his business suited minions have nefarious reasons to ship her back to her world. She’s connects with Sasha’s mother, Gloria (a luminous America Ferrera), a Mattel employee. Barbie, Gloria, and Sasha team up together and return to Barbieland and see that in her absence, Ken has reconstructed the world into a toxic patriarchy, brainwashing the Barbies (including President Barbie who is content being a bikini babe handing out beers to the guys). The danger is that the army of Kens have their eye on the Constitution to codify the sexism they’ve enacted.
The plot reads strange and farfetched – and it is. But there are loads of sight gags and hilarious moments that buoy the film and allow it to float over the script’s more ridiculous moments. There’s also an urgency in the message – it’s pop-feminism at its most effervescent, but it’s still pointed. There are visual and allegorical allusions to Trump, the January 6 insurrection, and the increasingly conservative SCOTUS. When Barbie returns to Barbieland after experiencing the real world and being confronted by the Kens’ patriarchy, she feels like a failure, which inspires a rousing speech by Gloria, who lays out the perennially complex, contradictory, and difficult lot of being a woman – having to be so many things to so many people. It’s one of many poignant moments in the film.
That is what’s so surprising about this film. Yes, it’s funny – it feels like comedy nonstop, however, there’s a constant melancholy, particularly in the characterizations of Robbie’s Barbie and Gosling’s Ken. Though both characters are uproarious – and the actors do miraculous work – they are grounded in rather sad bases. There’s a depth to the film that’s pretty unexpected. Ferrera’s performance in the film is moving, too, as she embodies the put-upon, world weary desk jockey who’s mourning for a simpler, lovelier past. As hilarious as Barbie is, it’s also very sad. Along with Robbie, Gosling, and Ferrera, there’s also a sweet performance by Cheers vet Rhea Perlman as Barbie creator Ruth Handler.
Though there’s a lot to praise about this film, it’s not perfect. It runs a bit long and there are one or two too many musical numbers that feel like they pad the film. But there such enthusiasm in these sequences that a too-long running time can be forgiven. Of course, our Barbie gets a happy ending, though not the ending that we expect. Viewers will leave Barbie with a smile on their faces (maybe a tear or two in their eyes) and maybe look at their old toys with some affectionate nostalgia.
A Seat in the Aisle 
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