Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Director: Greta Gerwig
Writers: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
Quick Impressions:
I’ve accidentally blundered into being part of a phenomenon. I love it when that happens. I’m having a Barbenheimer weekend. I love finding myself in a moment. It makes me feel like I’m starring in an episode of The Simpsons or a decade-themed nostalgia show. This is almost as good as being at Woodstock (as far as I know), and it’s already a lot better than Y2K.
This reminds me of that long-ago July weekend when my daughter was conceived when we did nothing but go to Mamma Mia and The Dark Knight. (Well. Not nothing. But we did see each of those twice.)
Weeks ago, that same daughter announced that we were going to Barbie as a mother/daughter bonding experience. So we bought Friday night tickets to celebrate the end of her first week at band camp. Tomorrow, I’m seeing Oppenheimer with her father. All three of us wanted to Barbenheimer, but my eight-year-old wasn’t feeling it. (He’s not a movie guy.)
I’ve been excited for Barbie, too. I’m a Margot Robbie fan. She’s highly watchable and always chooses interesting material. I know everybody’s talking about this movie, so I’ve scrupulously avoided online discourse. I don’t want to be swayed by others’ impressions until forming my own. (I’m eager to finish writing this, so I can finally read tons of stuff I have bookmarked all over the internet.)
On the way there, my daughter scoffed in annoyance, “Did you see the piece that said this movie forgot about its target audience?” Rolling her eyes, she added pointedly, “It’s like, ‘Have you considered that maybe not everything in the world is supposed to be for you?’” That was the one thing I heard before watching.
Greta Gerwig has a knack for writing material I find uncannily relatable. At several moments during Ladybird, I felt like I was watching my own life (odd, because, of course, that was not my life). I thought she captured the spirit of my senior year by writing something that would feel emotionally true to an immense number of people. Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, meanwhile, kept giving me intense, uncomfortable feelings of, “I don’t want that to be true, but I’m afraid it might be spot on.” So I was curious about this Barbie collaboration.
It’s kind of like a more fashionable Allegory of the Cave, with a dash of The Lego Movie, hints of Pinocchio, and late Ryan Gosling channeling early Justin Timberlake. (There’s a great N*Sync joke that’s especially funny when you remember that in their Mouseketeer days Gosling and Timberlake lived together.) The movie’s messages are heavy-handed and obvious. (Like, they just tell you over and over again.) But they’re so true that’s it’s hard to be too mad about it.
I remember when the Malibu Stacy episode of The Simpsons premiered. I found it so hysterically funny. My mom, my sister, and I just died when Marge said, “Now let’s forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream,” and then Lisa pulled the string, and the talking doll said the same thing. That could have happened in our house. (My mom and I would say that to each other for years.) If you like the humor and the message in that episode, then you should like this movie.
The Good:
Given that its plot centers on existential crises and mental health, Barbie is surprisingly fun. Mental health is not the easiest subject to write about. It’s pretty buzzy right now because we just went through a global tragedy, and everyone is even more burnt out and emotionally destroyed than usual. But doing justice to these topics is still tricky.
I struggle with this daily. I’m never sure how much to reveal about myself. I’m constantly accused of oversharing, and I think, “Oh my God! If you knew what I’m not telling you!” (Of course, the person “constantly” accusing me of oversharing is me. My brain boots up each day with a message like M. receives in that scene in Skyfall. “Think on your sins.” And apparently my brain thinks I’ve committed Judas Iscariot level atrocities before I’ve even gotten out of bed.)
I remember when I was applying to grad school, an advisor told me that it was a good idea for my application to highlight a time in life when I had struggled. Momentarily stumped, I finally started talking about my mental health and the tumultuous journey to a life-changing diagnosis.
“Oh no,” he told me. “Don’t disclose mental illness. They won’t accept you. They’ll assume you won’t finish the program.”
So then I didn’t know what to say. “Well, then I guess I haven’t had any struggles,” I said.
As a writer and as a human, I like to be as honest as I can. But sometimes talking about myself feels like playing Taboo. I want to tell you who I am, but I’m not allowed to say any of the words on the card. (There’s also, of course, the worry that I won’t express them well because perhaps my judgment will be off because it’s life, not a game of Taboo. I don’t get to draw a new card. So those descriptors remain relevant whether I say them or not.)
I know I’m not the only one playing Taboo. We all just have different words on our cards. That makes reality so difficult to negotiate because we’re all struggling, not knowing the interiority of anyone else, and not always able to do much about even our own struggles.
Greta Gerwig can say the words on the card because she’s a successful filmmaker who has been nominated for multiple Oscars. When she gives a voice to Barbie, she’s giving a voice to all women (who identify with what she’s saying. I’m sure there are people who’ll watch this and say, “I don’t identify with any of that. She’s not speaking of me.” And more power to you. But for me, much of what’s said in this movie about being a woman and being a human in our society was spot on. You watch and say to yourself, “I suspect that human beings wrote this.”)
Usually message movies aren’t my thing (ironic since I relentlessly, unfairly seek the meaning of life in everything I watch). But at several points during Barbie, I deeply felt the reality of what was being said. I identified with some of these things so hard. For me, it really hit.
After the film, my daughter pointed out, “I thought it was a sophisticated choice to show how the patriarchy was just as damaging to men, that they’re victims of it, too, because being within that system prevents them from acquiring the critical thinking skills they need to recognize and leave it.”
I hadn’t considered that in exactly the way she put it. That’s a point also highlighted by the recent book and film Women Talking and also one of my favorite aspects of Twelve Years a Slave (the idea that the abusive slave owner is also harmed and debased by the institution of slavery).
There is nuance in the way this point is conveyed. From the women’s side, we get lots of speeches and direct statements. But the way the men are being harmed emerges from a reading of their actions. There are fewer direct statements—because the characters are less self-aware. The message is conveyed through goofy humor, impassioned dance numbers, and endless talk of beaching each other off.
Helen Mirren makes a spectacular narrator. Even if the rest of the movie were horrible, the Helen Mirren/Margot Robbie combo would make it infinitely watchable. Ryan Gosling is ridiculous, charming, and weirdly moving as Ken. There’s also a great part for Kate McKinnon who is always a joy to watch. Simu Liu is an engaging dancer.
Best Scene Visually:
There’s a moment when Margot Robbie collapses to the ground like a doll, then rolls over on her face, and just stays there. If I had to make a meme of my life, it would be that. I’m not feeling like that just now. But I was feeling that way for a long time, as if my brain just said, “The end,” which would have been fine except it wasn’t the end. (My brain was just really pretty sure it was, though. It was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That was a great ending! Now it’s the end. I’m done. Goodbye. Oh, you’re pretending it’s not the end? Well, have fun without me. I’ll be so curious to see what you’ve done when I get back—except I don’t care because we all know life won’t really continue.”)
It’s a brilliant visual metaphor for depression and also for pandemic burnout or emotional overload, overwhelm freeze, total executive dysfunction….
Best Scene:
America Ferrera has this wonderful monologue describing everything that’s frustrating about being a woman, the impossible, contradictory standards, the dysfunctionality of our entire society. (It is pretty fun that the Barbenheimer thing taps into the zeitgeist of our broken world so perfectly. It would be fun enough to have two enormous, totally different movies drawing crowds to theaters, but we may be getting two presentations of similar problems. Both of these movies seem so of the moment, but I haven’t seen Oppenheimer yet, so I could be wrong.)
Best Action Sequence:
I teared up during the car chase early in the movie. America Ferrera’s character really spoke to me because my daughter is starting high school. She started band camp this week. Meanwhile, I spent the week going through old toys and donating as many as I could. Between my mother’s stuff, my kids’ old stuff, my dad’s stuff—I’ve gotten rid of an unbelievable amount of stuff. And I’m so sentimental. My mom treasured so many objects, and while I don’t feel the same about them, I feel the same about her. So I could not empathize more with Ferrera’s character. Then my daughter leaned over and whispered, “She drives like you, too. This is how you drive all the time.”
Funniest Sequence:
The chase through Mattel headquarters becomes memorably hilarious in one moment when Barbie and Will Ferrel come face-to-face. After the movie, my daughter also called out how much she enjoyed this part. There’s something so genuinely funny about it. There’s a weird truth to it, despite the illogic. It’s like something out of a cartoon, but it’s the way kids actually play.
The Negatives:
This is a movie with a message, and normally I’m a bit leery of message-heavy material delivered in a blunt, direct way. (I like a little artifice, finesse, guesswork, subtext, moral confusion, horror—I never know what’s going on in real life, and I enjoy that same complexity from works of fiction because why else bother majoring in English? If you want to be bombarded by clumsy statements, why not just use AI?)
But many messages in this movie resonated deeply with me, so I don’t mind it being so preachy.
One thing bugged me, though.
The moment when Barbie remains face down on the grass is one of my favorite parts of the movie. And the jokes about the line of depressed Barbies are funny. But for the rest of the movie, I kept thinking, “You can’t fix depression with girl power, and although our society is very broken, that’s not the only cause of depression. It’s not all the patriarchy. Sometimes it has nothing to do with circumstances at all. It’s a medical problem.” Now granted, participating in a complicated scheme with all your best friends probably would temporarily lift your spirits. And I think the film’s real message is about working on yourself and finding solutions to your own problems, self-discovery, facing the real world, not living in a fantasy. That’s all well and good. But sometimes everybody could be helping you, and you could have ten million dollars, and you could be living on a yacht in paradise, and you could still be down there not able to lift your face off the floor.
I know Margot Robbie wants kids to see this. (At least, I think I saw that headline. I haven’t let myself read past the headlines yet.) I agree it would be a good thing for kids to see. But you’d want to make sure that if you take kids, there’s not a level of clarity lost there. Sometimes you don’t lie with your face on the ground because someone did something to you. And sometimes if you are down there, the answer is not necessarily, “Get up and fix this.” A person who collapses may need rest.
My daughter and I talked about this, and initially she disagreed with my take because of the way the story works. But later, she said that she saw my point. This is a weird criticism, I know. She started defending the movie, explaining how the narrative and characterization were working. My issue is, I see how it’s intended to work. And I agree that it works. But I think there’s a huge possibility that children will come away with a message the filmmakers don’t necessarily intend and aren’t even realizing is being passed along.
I also think children might see the later parts of the movie as a bit misandrist. I don’t think that’s the intent either. In fact, I think what the movie is doing there is fairly sophisticated and nuanced (sort of delightful because the in-your-face mockery and costumes and dancing are all used to make a more subtle point). But I could see how a child might watch this and think, “Yeah! Boys are stupid and immature, and only girls are real people.”
My other small complaint is that the ending feels vaguely insulting to people who aren’t creators of some kind. As a writer myself, I sympathize with Barbie’s feelings. I’m a woman. I’m not a doll. I’m sure her Pinocchio-like sentiments will resonate with audiences because we all want what Barbie chooses. We’re all real people, not dolls. But that’s the thing. Anyone watching this movie is a real person, not a doll. No one is a doll. There aren’t any NPCs. We are all fully human. People with differing levels of self-awareness or in different places of their life journeys are still fully human. Everyone is real. Even in The Allegory of the Cave, the people who stare at the shadows aren’t the shadows. They’re people.
I’m not saying Gerwig and Baumbach intend this reading of their movie. I just notice a disturbing societal eagerness to flirt with the idea that some of us are making reality and some of us are living in illusion, and some of us might be pretend, like an NPC in a simulated reality. (Those NPCs are only there for our entertainment. But they do use a lot of resources…) I know this isn’t what Gerwig and Baumbach are trying to say, but it’s such a dangerous way of thinking. It concerns me. In so many ways, this is such a smart movie. Because the audience is directly lectured, though, repeatedly given the movie’s message directly, the allegory of the doll world could be misunderstood in a more literal way than is intended, especially because Ken is so funny. I know there are going to be people who miss the point. If they’re adults, they’re going to be so mad. If they’re kids, though, you may not realize they’ve missed the point. They’ll just quietly ingest “the lesson.”
Do I think kids should see it? Yes. If they can handle reality every day, surely they can handle Barbie. It is very message heavy, but these won’t be ideas you’ve never heard before. This shouldn’t be shocking anyone. If you think this movie has a lot to say against the patriarchy, then you couldn’t handle an afternoon with my daughter. It is rated PG-13. I don’t see why. However, I do tend not to notice stuff that doesn’t bother me. I’m never a reliable barometer for if the jokes are appropriate or there’s too much profanity. Also, I once (truly) forgot there was lesbian content in The Hours. I was thinking about the movie in terms of the storyline of the Ed Harris character and how the three narratives were working. (My friend was like, “Sarah.” It still took me like thirty seconds to remember.) I promise I’m not trying to lead children into unimaginable corruption. I just don’t think like a content advisory. (My husband always jokes as me, “I have a great movie to show the kids! It’s called The Wolf of Wall Street!”)
But I really don’t see why this is rated PG-13. I don’t remember any profanity or nudity. And the “beach off” joke is in the trailer! I would let my eight-year-old watch it. Maybe the issue is all the talk about death. Actually, my eight-year-old is terribly afraid of death. (But wouldn’t it be more worrying if he weren’t?) Death, the patriarchy, mental illness, stress, identity crises—these things all exist out in the world, so it’s not like your kids will avoid them by not watching Barbie.
Will this movie make a new generation of kids say, “We’re into Barbie!”? Maybe. I wasn’t particularly into Barbie, but I think my mom was. For my eighth birthday, she threw me a big Barbie party where the only gifts were Barbies. (Of course, that’s partially because we had just moved and didn’t have a house yet, and they were on clearance and easy to fit into a hotel room.) I played with Barbies most often in fifth grade. My friend and I would create elaborate stories about our classmates and teachers and pretend the dolls had the power to influence human behavior. I recently shared this with my fifth grade teacher over lunch. Possibly that was oversharing. Possibly.
Overall:
Barbie was good. Initially I wasn’t completely sold, but I mean, I am “Persistent Thoughts about Death Barbie,” so I was like, “This really speaks to me.” (I’m imagining Mr. Burns watching that school play on The Simpsons.) (I can’t remember if that’s the exact Barbie name, and every time I search, Google tells me help is available.) By the way, the soundtrack is great, and haven’t mentioned so many great cameos, supporting performances, and pop culture references. But now I have to go to bed! I’m excited now to see Oppenheimer. I’ll let you know how they compare. I expect fewer dance numbers.