In ‘Barbie,’ Doll Meets World

It seemed like an impossible task: In a time of growing anti-consumerism and the increasing irrelevance of gender, Greta Gerwig signed up to spin a feature-length film out of what many see as a shallow and retrograde, if not downright sexist, consumer product. Could our patron saint of modern cinematic womanhood pull off this high-wire act?

Barbie is well aware of these critiques—and it makes hay of them, especially in its snappy first act. The jokes and cameos come fast and furious, tongue hard in cheek and winks aplenty. “What started as a lady in a bathing suit turned into the idea that women can be anything,” narrator Helen Mirren intones in the film’s Kubrick-inspired prologue, the camera surveying Barbies of different professions and colors over the decades. “Because of Barbie, all the problems of feminism have been solved!”

The rosy splendor of the eternally upbeat Barbie Land, where the film begins, is a joy to behold, from the cul-de-sac of Barbie dream houses to Ken (Ryan Gosling, never funnier) and Stereotypical Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) matching costumes. But all is not well in the land of pink. Thoughts of mortality suddenly creep into Barbie’s mind. Her perpetually arched feet fall flat, and a sprinkling of cellulite surfaces on her thighs. Wild-haired, legs-akimbo Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) breaks the news: There’s a fissure between the Barbie World and the Real World, and Barbie must journey to the latter to fix it. (Yes, Barbie is yet another alternate-realities blockbuster.)

The rest is, for the most part, as smooth and pleasant as a ride in Barbie’s engineless convertible. Yet a handful of moments exhaust with gratuitous zaniness, and unnecessary plots and gags eventually bog down the buzz. The cast is also perhaps too chock full, giving some characters dismaying short shrift (more Jamie Demetriou, please).

The biggest shock—and spoiler—is perhaps the reveal that Barbie is actually a treatise on gender inequality. It’s mostly of the second-wave-feminism variety, however (Barbie is a boomer, after all, first hitting shelves in 1959), with sweeping ideas about women gaining power in public and private within existing systems, occasionally at the total exclusion of men. (Sorry Kens, no men allowed at the nightly girls night in Barbie Land—or on the Barbie Supreme Court.) America Ferrera, a harried but loving mother in the Real World who ends up communing with the dolls, is tasked with a rousing but somewhat generic speech enumerating the intractable binds women face in today’s society, just in case you missed the message. A spoonful of Barbie makes the feminism go down.