| CAST: | Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell |
| DIRECTION: | Greta Gerwig |
| GENRE: | Comedy, Satire |
| DURATION: | 1 hours 54 minutes |
Review:
Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland, a matriarchal society, together with all the other Barbies. All women are prosperous, independent, and confident in themselves, and this is the ideal society. Stereotypical In order to advance the relationship, Ken (Ryan Gosling) wants to do more than just be the stereotypical Barbie's friend. He and the other Kens engage in trivial pursuits like lying on the beach all day. One day, Barbie awakens us with dreams of death before beginning to change into a genuine human. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) explains to the girl that it must be because the girl playing with her in the real world is probably feeling depressed and down. The only way she could return to being the stereotypical Barbie was to go out into the real world and cheer up the girl who owned the doll.
Ken stows away and follows Barbie on her adventure into the real world. She discovers that the actual world is not as ideal as her world upon arriving there. Men dominate this world, for example—a fact that Ken likes right away—being human comes with its own issues, and girls despise Barbie dolls. When the CEO of the company that creates Barbies, Mattel, learns of this anomaly, he wants to send the girl back as soon as possible and shut the gateway that connects the two worlds.
Along the way, she runs with Gloria (America Ferrera), a displeased Mattel employee, and her teenage daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). While the mother and daughter are having problems, they put everything on wait in order to assist Barbie. In the meantime, Ken and his fellow Kens have taken over Barbieland, and if something isn't done, it appears like it will soon resemble the actual world. The central theme of the film is how Barbie makes things right.
Greta Gerwig has established a reputation for incorporating woke feminism into her works with movies like Little Women and Lady Bird, and she appears to be the finest choice to modernize Barbie for our times. Writing the screenplay with her husband Noah Baumbach, Gerwig has included some wonderful jabs at patriarchy throughout the movie. The two haven't even spared Mattel, which is the maker of Barbie and one of the film's producers. Barbie, the toy, has received enough of criticism in the past, so it says a lot about the self-assurance of the Mattel corporation that no amount of criticism will be able to diminish the appeal of their offering.
The director raises all the pertinent issues through the film's humorous observations on contemporary life. The solutions it offers, however, are that women want to have it all and look good doing it. Men also don't seem to have a place in their lives, which doesn't give credit to the questions. Gerwig seems to be content to stay inside the bounds of what is now trending on social media, in publications, and in self-help books. The director failed to genuinely make a point about the importance of Barbie in the real world in an effort to be clever and sarcastic. The result is a laugh riot that will have you laughing until your jaws hurt. Barbie herself recognizes this and ultimately decides to become a human. But perhaps we'll learn more about what happens to her after she jumps in a sequel.
She is fascinating to watch in the role of a doll who has grown up appreciating one reality and finds it difficult to adjust to a version in which everything she believes is true is inverted. You laugh at her and with her and support her all the way to the finish because of how well timed her moves are. Strangely, America Ferrera, not Robbie, is given the opportunity to deliver the five-minute speech on what it means to be a modern woman in the current world. Ferrera manages to outshine Robbie in a few situations, giving the impression that she is a more sophisticated Amy, the role she played in Superstore.
Margot Robbie is too beautiful to resemble an ugly Barbie, the narrator claims. As Ken, Ryan Gosling cracks us up. You can't take your eyes off of him as he goes about finding himself in a goofy manner. He's the perfect fit for the hopeless lover who confuses patriarchy with loving horses and dominating the world. He eventually finds the solution: "Being Ken is enough." But isn't that true for everyone?
Barbie Movie Trailer