Barbie is a movie that comes around only once in a blue moon. It’s a film that’s incredibly funny, empathetic and absolutely will take your breath away. You’ll find yourself dancing, clapping and cheering and absolutely sobbing at so many different moments.
From start to finish everything about this movie screams Barbie and screams empowerment. This is the type of empowerment that every single person can get behind. Yes it empowers women, but that isn’t solely who it empowers. It empowers women to embrace their girlhood, men to feel, and LGBTQ people to embrace their so called “weirdness”. Yes it doesn’t go much deeper than that, but I feel it doesn’t need to because it’s simply a movie about acceptance and belonging in this incredibly hard world to live in.
Barbie is wrapped in pink and wrapped with so much heart it will leave you almost in shambles by the end. It’s hard to talk about this movie without giving away the heart and soul of the movie which I think everyone should experience spoiler free. But the real heart of the movie is just feel and to feel like you are seen and can exist in a world and be yourself without feeling judged.
There are so many layers to this film that make it the masterpiece that it is. Barbie beautifully talks about and portrays motherhood, girlhood, loneliness, isolation, depression, and the patriarchy with seriousness that glows in pink glitter that never takes away from the heart of the movie but instead adds to it.
Barbie is incredibly fun and funny and there’s no denying it. there’s incredible comedic timing coming from everyone and every Barbie and Ken is absolutely charming. Ryan Gosling as Ken is absolutely hilarious and shows his meta and camp comedic chops here. He’s fully committed to his character and shines in every scene he’s in.
Now let’s talk Margot Robbie as Barbie. She is Barbie and does such a fantastic job at encapsulating perfection that starts to crack and how we have to deal with that idea. She’s able to be incredibly funny, charming, heartbreaking and you’re rooting for her every second of the film. Not to mention her outfits are absolutely perfect every time we see a new one.
America Ferrera is also great here and delivers one of the most powerful monologues in the movie that brought me to tears. The rest of the Ken’s and Barbie’s are great as well but aren’t given as much to do as Gosling and Robbie to really make too much of an impact on the film. There are so many characters that everyone can connect with and shows all walks of life in Barbie and Ken form. Allan is also a miraculous example for me personally as a man who has always never quite felt like he’s fit in with the typical “Kens” and instead finds himself standing in solidarity with the women around him. It perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a man that is an ally or a young boy growing up LGBTQ and not quite feeling connected to the man group or woman group.
Barbie has some of the best set design and costume design I’ve seen in a movie. You truly are transported to Barbie land and feel like it truly was made into real life. It’s a visual feast for the eyes that brings so much style to movie making and cements Greta Gerwig as one of the best directors making movies today. She’s able to weave so many important themes into one movie and all these themes are so relatable. She takes so much care in her writing, her directing and her characters and it all pays off in tremendous form with a huge big epic of an emotional movie that doesn’t let up.
I will never forgot the ending montage of Barbie with the Billie Eilish song playing over it. The moment moved me to complete sobs and I cannot stop thinking about it to this day. It’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts on Barbie but one thing is true, I have not stopped thinking about it and it truly is one of the best movies ever made.
Greta Gerwig crates one of the most fun and most touching movie not only of the year but of all time. Barbie is something you have to see to believe and it truly lives up to all the hype. It’s perfect in every way while dealing with topics of imperfection. I will never forget this movie experience sitting in a sold out theater with everyone dressed in all pink, it’s movie magic. Barbie is a movie that will stay with me forever and will hold a special place in my heart, go see it, wear pink and have the best blowout party ever, with tears included.
I give Barbie an A+
