Fun, wacky and occasionally surprising, Gerwig’s candy-coloured third solo feature tries to say something about the perils of gender oppression and excessive commodification with moderate success.

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Without the pull of writer-director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach, you wouldn’t have caught me catching Barbie.  Upending expectations of what a ‘Barbie’ movie would be like, Gerwig’s work is more potent and stimulating than one might give it credit for. 

Margot Robbie plays the titular character with ease, and opposite Ryan Gosling, who is even more impressive as Ken, who sulks, grooves and sings his way to some kind of redemption. 

They are both in this fantastical Barbie Land where every man is ‘Ken’, every woman is ‘Barbie’, and everything is pink.  It’s a place where women dominate and men can’t seem to be able to get their attention. 

Narrative complications arise when Barbie has an existential crisis and is advised to go to the Real World to solve it.  This is where Gerwig’s work becomes a few notches more pointed about the perils of gender oppression. 

“Humans have only one ending. Ideas live forever.”

Fun, wacky and occasionally surprising, Barbie reveals hard truths about entrenched phallocentrism and collective naivety—as some people in both Worlds criss-cross, the film becomes more and more self-aware of its intent, which is to create meaningful dialogue between women and men. 

The ultimate message, of course, is that regardless of the social construct of gender, each one of us is uniquely ‘I’. 

With moderate success, Barbie also says something about excessive commodification.  In Worlds where folks all want—consciously or otherwise—the same ‘toys’ and experiences, individuation becomes absent and conformity becomes the driving capitalist ideology. 

May we be fortunate enough to suffer from an existential crisis from time to time, one that might wake us up from our slumber.  (Actually, if you think about it, this is secretly the fifth Matrix movie by Warner Bros.)

Grade: B+

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