By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Greta Gerwig
• Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell
• PG-13

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

It’s actually interesting that it’s taken this long for a live action Barbie film to come out. The long gestating brand, which has been around since 1959 and changed the face of the toy industry forever, has had success in the animation market for over two decades but the live action end had alluded them. After all, how do you ultimately make a film about Barbie, who is less of a toy or even a character then it is a whole brand, an idea that was originally meant to fill a gap in the market of dolls before being reclaimed as a feminist symbol, then an anti-feminist pariah, and then back again.

Greta Gerwig, hot off of her success off of Lady Bird, one of the best coming-of-age movies of the past decade, and Little Women, one of the best book-to-movie adaptations of the past decade, seemingly has the same conundrum. The baggage of the character is something you can’t ignore, and if you do then it’s simply a vapid adaptation of nothing since Barbie itself is malleable and constantly changing. Gerwig’s seeming answer to this? Make it an old school Hollywood comedy, indebted to the films of the 50s like Some Like It Hot and Singin in the Rain, dance numbers included, but give it a distinctly modern edge.

Despite being based on a toy, Barbie is one of the great triumphs of the modern studio comedy. Maybe the best we’ve seen in decades, Barbie is a hysterical, uproariously funny time, running on a lovely style of dream logic that means anything that could happen, will happen, and probably not in the way you would expect. From it’s first images which parody 2001: A Space Odyssey right into a opening montage number that feels like a toyhouse come alive, Barbie immediately makes itself known as a unique entity among mainstream blockbuster fare. And all bets are off once the actual story of this starts, which has been smartly left out of the trailers to the point where most audiences will likely be unable to tell where this is going.

Gerwig’s masterful script, which despite being from a studio film is still filled with her usual mix of poetic wordplay, witty banter, and long form intellectual jokes that are funnier when you actually sit down and think about them, is ultimately a character study of Barbie herself. It’s actually pretty fitting that the “Barbenheimer” memes took off as they did cause the movies are ironically very similar in terms of what they are trying to achieve. Both of them are character studies using a famous figure (whether real or fictional) to explore greater ideas about the human condition, it just so happens that while one is bleak and more cynical, this is one is optimistic and filled with colour and pink and sparkles and it’s just so delightful!

The popping production design and incredible costume work somehow manages to take the plastic look of the toys and turn it into real life things without losing their toyetic essence, and this translates incredibly well over into the real world segments. Some may be a bit disappointed the real world isn’t nearly as colorful but it’s almost just as entertaining and witty, and Gerwig’s style from Lady Bird – that of long single shot convos and focus on faces – is everywhere in these moments. The entire cast is able to relish these moments as well, with Robbie in particular getting a close up in the middle of the film that’s the emotional focal point of the story.

But it’s Ryan Gosling who is far and away the breakout here, portraying a himbo version of Ken that goes to unexpected places in his arc. While Gerwig is interested in femininity and gender dynamics in all of her work, this is the first time she is actively also looking at masculinity, and the results are far more nuanced then you would expect from a movie like this. But a lot of that is also reliant on the great physical comedy and wordplay that Gosling delivers, which culminates in a strong climax for his character that’s one of the highlights of the whole picture.

Barbie is going to be inevitably provoke discussion about it’s themes. It’s not subtle about them in the slightest, but it’s also not trying to be, and the ideas it has to say about gender roles, mortality, the human condition, and the patriarchy are sharp and insightful in a way that the majority of these things just aren’t. I only wish the majority of studio pictures were as smart, as intelligent, and as well made as this. This is a one of a kind, brilliant summer film that’s just a blast, a delight, and the reason we go to the movies. Easily one of my favourites of the year so far and another winner from Gerwig.