Review: Barbie

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Barbie's (Margot Robbie) perfect life comes crashing down when she starts suffering an existential crisis and has to visit the real world only to find out that all the good things they thought they did for women in society were a lie.

Capping off my Barbenheimer double feature with this fun, smart and extremely goofy film was a must. Greta Gerwig has a lot riding on her shoulders. She's one of the few female directors that almost always gets her name into awards conversations and I think that's a lot of pressure. The way she handles Barbie proves once again that she deserves to be in those conversations.

Barbie tackles a wild range of topics that you've probably already heard others talk about. Mattel thankfully allowed the filmmakers to take the piss out of them quite a bit. So many of the jokes landed. Fragile men are bound to be butthurt by a few of them.

Margot Robbie was born to play Barbie. She is just so effortlessly perfect in this role. Ryan Gosling as Ken gets the showier performance just because Ken is absolutely ridiculous at times. (And he's glorious. I'm certainly on the supporting actor bandwagon for him) but when Margot cried, I cried. She was just great. America Ferrera playing Gloria, a human who is tied to Barbie really is the emotional center of the film. 

Not everything lands. Poor Ariana Greenblatt's Sasha is pretty one note as Gloria's bratty daughter and the film does take its dear sweet time wrapping up their final point, but what this film achieved overall overshadows its few faults. What a great weekend for movies.

Grade: A-

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 25, 2023 at 8:10 AM

    Wow! Ok…maybe there is more to it. I’m just so Barbie’s out from all the hype.

    ReplyDelete
  2. thevoid99July 25, 2023 at 4:34 PM

    This film was a fucking blast. I had a great time watching it as the screening I went to was nuts. It was largely women at the screening with I think 20-25% men yet there was a lot of pink at the screening I went to and I came into the screening wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt just to freak people out a bit. Yet, in the end. I was accepted as Heavy Metal Ken.

    I hope this film gets a shitload of Oscar nominations. Best Actor for Ryan Gosling. Best Actress for Margot Robbie. Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrera. Best Art Direction. Best Costume Design. Best Hair/Makeup. Best Original Song to "I'm Just Ken".

    I wanna see Ryan Gosling sing the song with Slash and Wolfgang Van Halen playing and all of the actors playing the Kens singing along. Man that number was great and there were moments in the film where I cried too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 26, 2023 at 7:47 AM

      That would be an amazing number! In a perfect world both I'm Just Ken and Peach from Super Mario Bros would be nominated for Best Original Song. There was a lot of pink at my showing too. I wore a t-shirt that said "Oppenheimer" but in the Barbie font lol

      Delete
    2. thevoid99July 26, 2023 at 3:34 PM

      That's fucking awesome!

      Delete
  3. RuthJuly 26, 2023 at 9:58 AM

    I'm glad I saw this (and wore pink too!), but I'm not in love w/ this movie as most critics are it seems (similar to last year's 'Everything, Everywhere' but still, I'm thrilled a female-directed movie finally became a massive hit!

    Robbie is so perfect as Barbie, but man, Gosling was such a scene stealer (and I'm not a big fan of his generally). His Ken is hilarious and I feel like the movie's um Kenergy shots up every time he's on screen. Ariana is a one-note actress, she was terrible in '65' and the weakest one here too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamJuly 31, 2023 at 8:09 AM

      I can forgive her for 65 because she was very limited on what she can do, but here...yikes. It wasn't good.

      Delete

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