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.In the over sixty years since Barbie was first released, there have been many differing opinions on the incredibly popular doll. Some have seen Mattel’s creation as a sign of empowerment, an example to young girls showing that they can become anything they want to be, while others have seen it as a symbol of impossible standards and outdated ideals. Barbie could’ve easily been little more than a toy ad, but through director and co-writer Greta Gerwig, it becomes an existential look at the difficulties of being a woman, the terrifying nature of life in general, the understanding that trying to be perfect is absurd, while also encapsulating everything that Barbie has meant to people—both good and bad. But amongst all this, Gerwig makes Barbie one of the funniest comedies of the year, a delightfully strange adventure that gets weirder at every turn. Barbie has always contained multitudes and, fittingly, so does Gerwig’s excellent third film.

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Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie

Margot Robbie stars as Barbie, the iconic doll who lives in Barbie Land with the other Barbies (played by Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, and many, many others), where they all have the best day of their life every day. In this land, the Barbies rule, as they have a Barbie president (Issa Rae), they run the land’s congress, and win Nobel Prizes daily. The Barbies believe that their example of a female-run world has been an inspiration to the Real World, which they assume is also run by empowered women. Barbie Land also has its share of Kens, who only have a good day if Barbie notices them. Ken (Ryan Gosling) is in love with Robbie’s Barbie, and fights for her attention with Ken (Simu Liu) when he’s not doing his job of “beach.”

After yet another incredible day in Barbie Land, Robbie’s Barbie mentions that she’s been thinking about death, which stops her grand, choreographed dance party at her Barbie mansion dead in its tracks. The next morning, nothing is right. Her shower is cold, she falls off her roof, and her feet are no longer perfectly shaped to fit her high heels. To find out what’s going wrong, she’s told by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon)—who knows of the human world all too well after being played with too hard—that she must go to the Real World and find the girl who is playing with her. Clearly, this girl is also having these negative feelings, and things won’t be right with Barbie until things are repaired. To fix her world, Barbie and Gosling’s Ken go to the Real World to find Barbie’s owner, but in doing so, they both find a world that couldn’t be more different than their own.

Greta Gerwig Is the Perfect Filmmaker to Tell This Story
Image via Warner Bros.

Barbie is ambitious in its approach to the quintessential toy, and this story simply wouldn’t work without the direction of Gerwig and her and Noah Baumbach’s bonkers script. Barbie balances the incredibly pointed specificity of the jokes and relatability of Lady Bird, with the celebration of women and the ability to show a new angle of something we thought we knew like we saw with Gerwig’s take on Little Women. Gerwig and Baumbach manage to make this not feel like a toy ad, but rather, a discussion of sexism and womanhood that’s also hysterical and extremely odd. This is a film that balances jokes about Ken being good at his job of “beach,” with references to Marcel Proust and Stephen Malkmus. It’s almost shocking how much this duo gets away with in this script, and in certain moments, like a major speech by America Ferrera’s Gloria, who works at Mattel, it’s beautiful that some of these scenes can exist in a big-budget summer film like this. While many have tried to get this idea off the ground and running, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing it with as much skill and care as Gerwig and Baumbach do here.

Gerwig’s direction here is also terrific, as she’s able to make Barbie Land feel real, with production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer doing unbelievable work throughout. Gerwig’s work behind the camera is vibrant and bold, and it’s great to see her have such a massive canvas to play with. Gerwig’s handling of this story can’t help but remind of the eye-popping colors of Jacques Demy films like The Young Girls of Rochefort or The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, fantasy numbers that feel right out of An American in Paris, and the perfectly constructed offices of Mattel in the real world feel like Jacques Tati’s PlayTime. Barbie also uses its superb soundtrack, from Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, to elevate this story in brilliant ways. For example, Lizzo’s “Pink” almost acts as a narrator to Barbie’s plight at the beginning of the film, while Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” is a pitch-perfect addition to one of the movie’s most moving scenes. Again, it’s this consideration and intentional placement of all these elements that Gerwig adds to the film that makes this feel like more than just “a film about Barbie.”

The only segment of Barbie that doesn’t work as well as it maybe should is the addition of Mattel into this narrative. Will Ferrell appears as the CEO of Mattel, and his all-male boardroom attempts to get Barbie back to the Real World, lest the world finds out how easy it is for toys to come into our world. It’s an admirable addition, with Gerwig commenting on how this girl’s toy is largely created by men and how hypocritical that can be. While that’s certainly worth adding to this story, the film frequently returns to these characters, and especially by the end, they seem to be more of a burden to the story of Ken and Barbie than actually a useful addition. They’ve made their point, and yet, the film continually comes back to them in a way it probably doesn’t need to. But again, this is a minor complaint, and it’s at least impressive that Gerwig and Baumbach were able to get away with making the company behind this film part of the inherent problem with this icon in the first place.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are Tremendous as Barbie and Ken
Image via Warner Bros

Of course, Barbie would be nothing without Barbie, and Robbie is simply incredible in the title role. Robbie can represent everything this toy has meant to people, as we watch this plaything become human, in her own way. Robbie is very funny when she needs to be, but we can feel the weight of this character learning that the world isn’t what she always hoped it would be. She discovers she might not be the icon of change that she thought she was and begins to understand just how terrifying change can be. It’s as if Gerwig and Baumbach are diving into everything this character has meant over the decades and how that has and hasn’t worked, and Robbie encompasses that perfectly. She has often excelled in these types of roles where we see the power a woman truly has in her environment, but there might not be a better example of that than in Barbie.

Gosling is equally fantastic as Ken, a lovable idiot who thinks the patriarchy has something to do with horses and men ruling the world together. Ken seeing the power that men have in the real world and embracing it could’ve been abrasive, but Gosling always manages to make this character goofy and understandable. As a character who just wants to be seen, our world makes Ken into a person with power like he’s always wanted. Gosling is always great when he embraces comedy, like we’ve seen with The Nice Guys and moments of La La Land, but Ken allows Gosling to go broad in a way that we’ve never seen him go before, and the result is charming, bizarre, and one of the most hysterical performances of the year.

It’s easy to be cynical about a film like Barbie, a film that has at least partially been made to sell toys and even makes Mattel a part of the actual story. But Barbie is also an example of how getting the right people behind an unusual idea can make something truly beautiful come out of it, much like The Lego Movie or The Social Network before it. Gerwig has created a film that takes Barbie, praises its contribution as an idea to our world, but also criticizes its faults, while also making a film that celebrates being a woman and all the difficulties and beauty that includes. This also manages to be a film that feels decidedly in line with Gerwig’s previous films as she continues her streak as one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. Barbie could’ve just been a commercial, but Gerwig makes this life of plastic into something truly fantastic.

Rating: A-

Barbie comes to theaters on July 21.