And? Is “Barbie” as good as the hype? No! Better!

Simon Meier

Dear humanity, the time has come. After what felt like a billion posts about the set, the intentions, the people behind ‘Barbie’, after ‘Barbiecore’ fashion spreads and ‘Barbenheimer’ memes, ‘Barbie’ finally descends into our cinemas from the rainbow of hype. Check it out: it’s great. It is the birth of a cult film.

Director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig has created two worlds. Or two Americas. Barbieland and the real USA. Barbies live in Barbieland. And Ken’s. And some little Mattel dolls. Instead of the White House there is the Pink House, it is the seat of government of the black Barbie president (Issa Rae), all Nobel prizes go to Barbies, houses are built by and for Barbies. In fact, all jobs are filled by Barbies, while the Kens are like hyperactive decor items with no jobs or homes.

The cliché Ken (Ryan Gosling) par excellence, a man like a golden poodle, has exactly two goals in life: the beach or just “beach” – “my job – it’s just beach” – and the goal to be seen by Barbie. Her gaze makes him something of value. Without her he is nothing. With her but also just a mindless appendage.

Ryan Gosling satirizes his entire career as Ken – from the little girl Disney Club star, to the daring romantic hero, to the singing, dancing beau from “La La Land.” Oh yeah, that the Kens are supposed to be straight is possibly the biggest lie in doll history.

Everyone who lives in Barbieland is all plastic fantastic, a needless creature with no genitals, guts or anything, everyday life is just a semblance of everyday life, the perfectly stocked fridge is just a painting, like the sky or the perfect wave . It’s a paradise of loving, pastel-colored artificiality, so beautiful you might want to see the movie a second time just for that.

The citizens of Barbieland believe that the real world is modeled after theirs because theirs is a model world. If Barbies can be anything from Miss Universe to an astronaut in the universe, then any woman can do it, the Barbies think.

Spoiler: the real world sees it very differently. And Ken will discover there a phenomenon that, for reasons only he can understand, he long thought came from «horse»: it is called «patriarchy». Ken will be so excited that he will even borrow books on the subject.

But before that can happen, the most perfect of all Barbies must first pass: Margot Robbie, born Barbie, is suddenly plagued by premonitions of death and flat feet. Now threatened with Birkenstocks instead of high heels, she has caused a “rupture” in the “membrane” between Barbieland and the world, and to mend it, the witchy “Weird Barbie” (SNL icon Kate McKinnon) kills her on an Odyssey sent by the real California. Where she is born very soon.

Girls insult her there as a product of “sexualized capitalism” and as a “fascist”, only stupid boys work instead of neat Barbies on a construction site, and Mattel’s all-male management team wants to lock them up in their original packaging.

What has to happen happens: the toy, which like any good cinematic AI becomes more and more human, rebels and goes into attack mode, but because Barbie is Barbie, she doesn’t grab the opponent’s balls, but much more manipulative ones theirs.

“Barbie” is a declaration of love for a product and all the fantasies that can be fulfilled with it. But also a fierce statement of solidarity with the criticism it unleashed. There is lots and lots of fun for all parties. Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it’s intellectual, mega kitsch meets target text, even the word “Proustian” is mentioned once. The good lines are so fast it’s hard to keep one, and the confident Ken’s jersey slogan “I Am Kenough” will soon be on many t-shirts.

Greta Gerwig constantly blows out any objection to her film, and every sentimental sermon about dolls’ quest for identity is followed by a punchline so grandiose that you sit in the cinema completely disarmed with laughter. One of the best about 350 sentences falls at the very end, for any real woman it amounts to maximum punishment, but for Barbie it means paradise. Everything is very different here.

And everything here is completely cinematic: the quotes and allusions in Hollywood history, which has always been a story of illusions and artificial worlds, are sometimes very direct, sometimes very delicate and range from musical films of all decades to « 2001: A Space Odyssey”, “The Godfather” or “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”. And instead of the “yellow brick road” that Dorothy dances with her dog in the “Wizard of Oz”, there is of course a “pink brick road” here.

Barbieland, Greta Gerwig tells us in a wildly entertaining way, is really nothing but over the top Hollywood. One in which no background or prop is “real” and special effects are not special, but are quite natural part of the daily life of the stars. A place where dreams come to a stop. Until the bubble bursts.

“Barbie” hits theaters July 20.