Movies based on toys don’t exactly have the reputation of being the smartest of cinema’s exports as every entry that proves to be the surprising exception (The Lego Movie, or Bumblebee, for example) being staunchly outnumbered by the majority of the Transformers sequels or the like of Battleship. However, pulling up in her bright, pink, dream car and striding her way to the ring on her permanently tiptoe feet is the latest challenger to the toy movie throne and her name is Barbie.
A cinematic excursion for arguably one of the most famous toys in all of creation, the fact that we hadn’t gotten a live action swing at Mattel’s most infamous property is both genuinely surprising and a legitimate godsend as the chances of a result that was as blandly insipid and shallow as something like – say – The Emoji Movie was all but inevitable, but after the arduous development process spat out the likes of Diablo Cody and Amy Schumer, it was left to Greta Gerwig to fling open the doors to Barbieland and attack the material with the most pinkest satire you’re likely to see all year.
Life in Barbieland sure is swell as Barbie, in all of her many incarnations enjoys a life knowing that thanks to her go-getter attitude and hard work, they’ve solved all of the workds problems by showing little girls that they can be whatever they want to be, be it doctor, author or president.
The Barbie we focus on is Stereotypical Barbie and she spends her time looking perfect, engaging in parties with all the other Barbies, politely rebuffing the advances of the frustrated-yet-besotted Beach Ken and then having more parties in the form of a predicably Barbie-packed sleepover.
However, her idyllic existence is soon punctuated by weird breaks from the norm as Barbie suddenly starts contemplating mortality, suffers from her feet going flat and, worse of all, getting cellulite on her famously smooth pins. A quick visit to Weird Barbie (a Barbie who has been played with too hard) confirms the worst – that a rift has opened up between Barbieland and the human word that can only be closed after Barbie crosses over and meets the child who plays with her doll self to find out what the issue is. However, as she travels to the human world, she finds that Ken, in all his clumsy clinginess, has stowed away in the back of her dream car and cows to go with her into the unknown.
The unknown proves to be modern day L.A. and Barbie soon finds out that the codes of blindly optimistic womanhood and rampant consumerism hasn’t changed jack-shit for little girls as she enters a scary world of sexual harassment, inequality and all the general crap women have to put up with as part of their day to day. But while she tries to find her “owner”, the marginalised Ken discovers something called the patriarchy and the effects it would have if brought back to Barbieland could prove to be disastrous.
As I alluded earlier, Barbie could have been just another gaudily decorated cash in that either could have gone down the route of empty kids flick or R-rated piss take and yet due to a script that throws in Barbie dimensions, lashings of sharp edged satire and some laser guided social commentary, Greta Gerwig has seemingly made a very trippy version of Fight Club aimed at twelve year old girls that everyone can enjoy. Well… almost everyone.
By now it’s no secret that Barbie has some big things to say about everything from gender equality to toxic masculinity, but before we start hearing screams of “feminist agenda” and “man hating”, it’s worth noting that Barbie’s Deadpool levels of self awareness is smart enough to cut both ways. Gerwig creates an incredibly vibrant Barbie land that looks like it’s been ported directly out of the imagination of a prepubesant girl with open plan dream houses without any stairs (Barbies just float to the ground floor as if carried) and fridges stacked with stickers of food. But in among the deep cuts that’ll no doubt be hugely affecting to everyone who owned the titular doll is a world where women hold all the power and while it’s a peaceful, positive and very pink nirvana, the Kens, particularly Beach Ken, are all lost within their supporting roles as Barbie’s eye candy. Similarly, once Barbie and Ken enter the real world, she is horrified to find out that not only has her positive role model status not changed the world for the better, but the toy line is even seen as a throwback to rampant 80’s capitalism with our heroine even being labelled a fascist at one point.
Basically, what I’m saying is that Gerwig gets this on a fundamental level and while her tongue in cheek spoofing of toxic masculinity after Ken discovers patriarchy and unleashes it on Barbieland like a plague, is played for laughs, the message may not be as vindictive as some might fear, but it is clear.
Anyway, none of Gerwig’s ambitious merging of doofy comedy with gender politics could work if the cast are utterly game and this is where the movie gains the majority of its strength. Margot Robbie may seemingly be in everything at the moment, but look at her – she fucking is Barbie and her keen comedic skills aid her greatly as the plastic icon goes into a full, existential meltdown despite wandering through L.A. in spandex so bright, it makes the atomic test in Oppenheimer seem tolerable in comparison. However, Barbie’s not so secret weapon proves to be Ryan Gosling’s Ken who takes the physical comedic muscles he toned in The Nice Guys and puts in one of the funniest performances of the year. Utterly ill equipped to handle his own emotions, let alone the power that comes with holding all the cards, his assent into a callous, dopey dictator who dresses like Logan Paul joined a glam rock band is truly magnificent.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg as the absurdly expansive cast of supporting roles and cameos also add to the giddy joy of the piece with Helen Mirren’s narrator, Kate McKinnon’s splay-legged Weird Barbie and Michael Cera’s permanently out-of-place Alan making waves.
Also, much like the similarly anarchic Lego Movie, the film has great fun delivering an exhausting amount of references, nods and in-jokes that pay homage to the doll’s long and sometimes checkered history (a breast expanding Growing Up Skipper, anyone?) although it might be worth a quick watch of The Toys That Made Us on Netflix to brush up on more of the obscure or heartfelt moments.
There will no doubt be the usual, unnecessary shit-storm that’ll follow in the wake of Barbie’s release, but if the movie was to honor the iconic legacy that comes with that blonde hair and megawatt smile, it needed to be both fun and empowering – both are doled out to a dizzy degree. Let’s go party.
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