In the Flesh: Barbie

“Barbie has a good day every day,” the divine voice of Helen Mirren declares. “But Ken only has a good day if Barbie looks at him.” Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is deeply fascinated by the ways in which perception shapes self-perception which in turn gives rise to the complex act of being. Ken (Ryan Gosling) can conceive of himself only in relation to Barbie (Margot Robbie), who in turn sees herself at first solely through the lens of marketing copy about the toy industry’s feminist triumph over adversity, later in relation to Gloria’s (America Ferrera) emotional crisis over the end of her daughter’s childhood. Is it all still essentially a toy commercial? Sure. It winks at the fact repeatedly, dodging pretty deftly between earnestness and self-satire. It brings to mind Rupert Murdoch’s appearance on The Simpsons, which began with his hoarsely growling, “I’m Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant.” Being able to laugh at yourself is just good business. In this case, consumerist ethics and the inherent limitations of corporate-sanctioned lampooning aside, the result is extremely fucking funny.

Gerwig and Baumbach’s script has its faults. The Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman) stuff doesn’t really work and some of the more sincere emotional moments feel a little stilted, but the jokes, man… the jokes are good. Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel hollering about sparkles and female agency, Issa Rae’s deadpan delivery of a bleeped “motherfucker”, Kate MacKinnon’s randy musing on the nature of Ken’s “smooth crotch blob” — it’s sharp and it’s quick and it hits much more often than it misses. The film works best when it’s self-conscious of its own broader insignificance, playing with big ideas it knows it doesn’t have the stomach to fully digest. Ken bringing patriarchy to Barbieland, the visual gag of all the Kens serenading all the Barbies by firelight with Matchbox 20’s ‘Push’, Margot Robbie’s bright and conversational “Do you ever think about death?” The movie punches above its weight class and does so in a way that feels neither smug nor overconfident. The underlying beliefs and assumptions may be rather pat, but that’s liberalism for you.

The real engine making this thing run as smoothly as it does is the one-two punch of Robbie’s marvelously subtle performance as the titular doll, currently undergoing a crisis of self-image and existential angst, set next to Ryan Gosling’s broad, almost slapstick turn as Ken, whose immediate descent into deranged lust for power following his exposure to the real world is some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in a theater in years. The two play off each other with marvelous ease, Gosling hamming it up harder and harder as Robbie delves deeper into what it means to be a full and complex human being. It’s like watching someone turn into a Looney Tunes character in the middle of a bereavement support group. And the outfits! The sets! The music! There are so many aesthetic layers at work in the studied artifice of Barbieland, a candy-colored idyll where decades of fashion and culture are in constant clashing proximity to one another. Its few stumbles are a small price to pay for a great night at the movies.

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.