Movie Review: Barbie

The most anticipated movie of the summer, Barbie, by the one and only Greta Gerwig, has finally hit theaters, and OFM is here to give you a rundown of what to expect. This review contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go see it now! I promise you really don’t want to miss this one.

From the moment I saw the 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque trailer back in December of 2022, I have been counting down the days until Barbie was finally released on July 21 alongside the iconic Barbie: The Album. As a fan of Greta Gerwig and her past work including Little Women, Lady Bird, and Frances Ha, I was ecstatic when I found out she was going to be the mind behind this pink-filled film.

Since Gerwig is known for creating stories and characters depicting young women coming of age, I knew that she was the perfect director to take on the concept and bring Barbie’s Dream House to life. Alongside the filmmaker, Mattel, the creator of the doll, led the crew through an “immersion” experience and outlined the long history of Barbie since her debut in 1959 at the Toy Fair in New York City.

Now, of course, I was determined to see the movie opening night along with many others, and it was not easy to get tickets. After almost 30 minutes of looking at every theater and showtime near me, I was finally able to snag some tickets, and all that was left for me to do was decide what pink outfit I would wear for this special occasion. With 90% on rotten tomatoes and $337 million in revenue for their opening debut, Barbie has now had the largest opening weekend of 2023 so far and has made history as the biggest movie debut ever for a female director.

Upon walking into the movie theater, I was immediately surrounded by crowds of people wearing all shades of pink, sparkles, and costumes, and even more excited to imagine how many other theaters across the world were also filled with pink that night. 

The theater itself was packed front to back and the audience clapped as the film opened with a larger-than-life Margot Robbie smiling while little girls surrounding her rejected their outdated baby dolls and held onto their Barbies. I am also a fan of Margot Robbie, and in my opinion, she is the perfect Barbie, I mean just look at her! 

Barbie Land is a magical world where women are in charge and everything is exactly 23% smaller than real-life objects making the set seem like a real-life dollhouse. Created by production designer Sarah Greenwood, the set was inspired by midcentury modern architecture and cul-de-sacs in Palm Springs featuring layered 3-D and 2-D elements that create an artificial feel surrounded by bright pastels and doll-like props. However, in Barbie Land, none of the dolls actually eat or drink, and there is no real water, so the film features fake plastic waves and toy-like food and drink props that the Barbies can actually pick up. As someone who watched Barbie: Life in the Dream House, and who had many Barbie toys of my own as a kid, I was very impressed by the film’s fun and realistic depiction of Barbie’s world. 

The movie itself depicts Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they embark on a journey of self-discovery to the ‘real world,’ in Los Angeles, following an existential crisis as Barbie copes with sudden dark thoughts, self-awareness, anxiety, depression, changes to her perfect body, and her normally arched feet going flat. Seeing that these are things that women struggle with on a daily basis, the Barbies will soon realize the perils of the real world and the fact that women do not perceive Barbies as empowering as they were programmed to imagine. 

As Ken is introduced to the patriarchy, and Barbie is captured by Mattel, Ken returns to Barbie Land and tells all of the other Kens about the real world and how men are in charge, creating a rift in Barbie Land. He then comically begins to fixate on horses and the Wild West, which you’re just going to have to watch for yourself. Once Barbie escapes Mattel headquarters and runs away from a very angry Ynon Kreiz (Will Ferrell)—the CEO of Barbie-maker Mattel—she is rescued by Gloria (America Ferrera), a mom connected to the Stereotypical Barbie, causing Barbie to malfunction. Gloria is struggling with her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) growing up and no longer being the little girl she once had. 

Whilst on the run from Mattel, Barbie returns to Barbie Land with help from Gloria and Sasha and is startled to come back to the now Ken Land where patriarchy is in full swing, their natural roles have flipped, and all of her fellow Barbies have been reprogrammed to serve the Kens, and the dream houses are now called Mojo Dojo Casa Houses. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) helps Barbie derive a plan to bring all of the Barbies back to their reality and to save Barbie Land before the natural order is broken and Ken Land is voted into action. 

Barbie is a very straightforward depiction of how hard it is to be a woman and pulls at many emotional strings that had many audiences in tears (including me). As Barbie continues to cope with self-pity and existential dread, and experiences the struggles of being a real woman, the movie shifts from a doll-like perspective to a more human-like one. Barbie states that being a modern woman is just too hard, and Gloria pushes her to forgive herself and tells Barbie, “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough.” The movie really is a movie for women written by women, and to see it bring so many people together for opening weekend was really wholesome and nostalgic, to say the least.

Even after learning all of the loops, and challenges women must jump through to simply exist in the world, Barbie still chooses to become a real human and engages in a heartfelt conversation with the creator of Barbie, Ruth Handler (Rhea Pearlman), as she holds Barbie’s hand and just tells her to “feel” as Barbie experiences her heartbeat for the first time as she becomes a real woman. The film then spins into a montage of women and children growing up and going through life and brings the movie to an emotional yet funny conclusion as Barbie goes in for her first appointment at the gynecologist seeing that she is now a real woman and no longer a ‘plastic’ doll with doll parts, all while rocking a pair of pink Birkenstock sandals.

In the end, Barbie is an accolade for womanhood, and I personally believe that Gerwig did a phenomenal job. 

Photo courtesy of social media