‘Barbie’ Review: A Doll Discovers the World, and Herself

July 20, 2023

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Hey, Barbie … wassup! (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Helen Mirren, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Ariana Greenblatt, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya, Marisa Abel, Michael Cera, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, Rob Brydon, John Cena, Rhea Perlman, Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Emerald Fennell, Ann Roth, Annie Mumolo, Lauren Holt

Director: Greta Gerwig

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Discussions About Doll Genitals, or Lack Thereof

Release Date: July 21, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Barbie has had remarkable staying power. The eternally popular line of dolls represents a sort of perfect womanhood that’s impossible to achieve in real life. But in Barbieland, that perfection is a plain fact. Or so the opening of the 2023 film version of Barbie would have us believe. But that intro also quickly reveals some cracks in the glittery pink feminine utopia. The classic version of the title character, aka “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), is inexplicably starting to ponder her mortality. So she and one of the Kens (Ryan Gosling) head off to the real world to discover where this negative energy is coming from. They get a rude awakening with a very different status quo on Venice Beach, and then they head to Mattel headquarters to meet their makers. If it all works out, our relationship to Barbie and her relationship to us promise to never be the same.

What Made an Impression?: A Thin Line Between Fantasy and Reality: What’s especially striking about the mechanics of Barbie is just how easy it is to travel between Barbieland and the real world. While in the throes of her existential crisis, Stereotypical Barbie seeks counsel with the somewhat outcast Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon). She’s basically this movie’s Morpheus, but instead of offering a blue or red pill, the choice is between high heels and Birkenstock sandals. Once Stereotypical Barbie opts for the hero’s journey, all she has to do is drive, and soon enough, she’s in sunny Southern California. That ease of transport cuts both ways, as the only requirement to travel into Barbieland appears to just be rollerblades. It’s a wonder there hasn’t been more interaction between worlds before this point! But maybe there actually has been. Indeed, the Mattel employees refer to some previous similar incidents, and while Barbie’s fish-out-of-water routine leads to some assumptions that she’s mentally unwell, the ultimate conclusion is that it’s perfectly reasonable that a flesh-and-bones version of this classic doll would appear eventually.
A Thorough Education: I’m not one to always advocate for the primacy of Showing over Telling, as there are times when exposition is perfectly satisfying. But Barbie does lean a little hard on the Telling side of the equation and ends up a bit in Didactic territory. Characters spell out simple emotions that they’re experiencing for the first time, with a bluntness that threatens to rip away all of the magic. There’s ultimately a similarly blunt conflict that I found surprising, though perhaps I should have seen it coming. When the main Ken encounters the patriarchal systems of the real world, he excitedly smuggles those ideas into Barbieland and transforms the dreamhouses into mancaves with no resistance from the suddenly hypnotized Barbies. Masculine insecurity becomes the enemy perhaps too simplistically, although I do appreciate the fact that Ken thought the patriarchy was actually about horses. That cluelessness is an ace in the hole, while the chauvinism is more run-of-the-mill.
That Mattel Magic: While the title and so much of the dialogue squeals “Barbie!,” the heart of the movie can actually be found in some of the more human characters. To wit: the Mattel office, which initially appears to be as stiflingly patriarchal as the Kens eventually become. And it certainly is in one respect, as all of the top executives are men in suits making decisions about what’s best for girls and women. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Led by Will Ferrell in his most eager-to-please form as the CEO, their core motivation is to genuinely provide the world with the best possible version of Barbie. They embrace the fun and frothiness and rollerblading of it all in a way that I can only hope is true of all toy executives.
But the crux of the narrative lies with America Ferrera as Gloria, the CEO’s assistant, as well as her tween daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Whereas Sasha views Barbie as the source of all of the unrealistic expectations heaped on women, Gloria can’t help but hold on to a girly fantasy world. But if Barbie is to still mean anything to Gloria (and by extension everyone) else in 2023, then she needs to embrace the anxiety-inducing messiness of life. Barbie the Movie invites viewers to adapt Barbie the Concept into whatever version they need at whatever particular moment they’re going through. It may be a little frightening to have that lesson centered around a corporate product, but it’s what we’ve got in the culture.

Barbie is Recommended If You Like: The Lego Movie, Rollerblading, eBay-focused nostalgia

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Dreamhouses

Greetings From Movie Review, N.J.: ‘Blinded by the Light’ Review

August 28, 2019

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CREDIT: Nick Wall/Warner Bros.

In my review of Yesterday, I took the disappearing-Beatles film to task for failing to answer all the questions it raised. (Yesterday, I don’t mean to bag on you too hard; you’re enjoyable even though you’re so silly.) Now another movie about the power of one classic musical act has come along, and it benefits from a much tighter focus. Instead of imagining what the entire world would be like without Bruce Springsteen, it captures the profound effect the Boss has on one British-Pakistani teenage boy in 1987 small-town England. But that tight focus doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of questions to be answered.

Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) is immediately enraptured the first time he encounters the poet laureate of Asbury Park, and despite their (superficial) cultural differences, he sees a model of inspiration to break out of his hometown and make it as a successful writer. But his new favorite music doesn’t change the fact that he’s growing up in a traditional immigrant family beset by financial struggles and prejudice from their neighbors and the National Front party. Javed thinks that Springsteen’s message is pretty simple, and in some ways, it fundamentally is. But the challenge for him is to look outward with that message when he is tempted to remain inward. Luckily, Blinded by the Light is up to the challenge of answering the questions of how one artist with such a personal touch can inspire someone to be a good son, friend, sibling, boyfriend, neighbor, and overall human. The journey it presents is unfailingly earnest and bursting with ebullience

Blinded by the Light is Recommended if You Like: Bend It Like Beckham, Sing Street, Standing up to neo-Nazis

I give Blinded by the Light 90 Death Traps out of 100 Runners in the Night.

This Is A Movie Review: Aardman Kicks It Stone Age-Style with ‘Early Man’

February 13, 2018

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CREDIT: Lionsgate

This review was originally posted on News Cult in February 2018.

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall, Richard Ayoade, Selina Griffiths, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Gina Yashere, Simon Greenall, Rob Brydon, Kayvan Novak, Miriam Margoyles, Nick Park

Director: Nick Park

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: PG for Stone/Rock/Boulder-Based Cartoon Physical Humor

Release Date: February 16, 2018

Early Man is the sort of film that delivers exactly what you expect and hope it would deliver. It is the latest stop-motion animated effort from Aardman, and it is just as understated, British, and charming as Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep. There might be a bit more physical humor this time around, though. It does take place in the Stone Age, after all, so it makes sense that it would feature a significant number of conks on the head.

This is one of those movies that presupposes that subsequent historical periods existed side by side against each other as opposing tribes. It may be true that the Bronze Age followed the Stone Age, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t go down with bronze-toting brutes declaring to a tribe of cavemen, “The Stone Age is SO OVER! Bronze is where it’s at now!” Of course, historical accuracy is not the point here, so these are not complaints, just descriptions of goofiness. It is worth noting, though, that ahistorical larks like Early Man like to pretend that they are historically accurate, thus why we get very precise setting-establishing subtitles like “neo-Pleistocene Age, near Manchester, around lunchtime.” It’s all in good fun!

Early Man is essentially an underdog sports movie, as the fight between the Stonies and the Bronzers comes down to a soccer match (or football, since we’re in England). After a Bronze Age army overruns the Stone Age village, caveman Dug (Eddie Redmayne) bumbles his way into the Bronze city and then brokers a deal with Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) in which the two societies will face off on the pitch to determine who gets to retain residence of the village. As the caveman are totally unfamiliar with the sport, this leads to a predictably silly training montage. Also fitting in with the tropes of the genre is Goona (Maisie Williams), a Bronze Age vendor who defects to help the caveman, since she is not a fan of the big bad team winning all the time without emphasizing teamwork or allowing women into its ranks.

The character design would be grotesque if it were live action, but the Aardman style renders it cute, though still weird, but adorably so. The cavemen are all buck teeth and porcine snouts, while the Bronzers sport skinny heads and exaggerated midsections. The biggest fun comes from the puns based in hindsight and the retrofitted modern technology. Noting that their tribe are early risers, Dug reminds his chief (Timothy Spall) “we’re early men,” and for all you hooligans out there, there is indeed a team named “Early Man United.” But bringing me the most joy has got to be the “instant replay,” in which plays are reenacted with crude figures on a board along the sideline. Obviously this is not the actual origin of replay, but it is fun to spend an hour and a half within a world in which it is.

Early Man is Recommended If You Like: Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep Movie

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Buck Teeth