The 2023 cinema year was marked by the coincidental historical event ‘Barbenheimer’, when Greta Gerwig’s brightly colored satire ‘Barbie’ and Christopher Nolan’s biopic ‘Oppenheimer’ entered cinemas side by side on July 20. While “Barbie” won the race against “Oppenheimer” with $1.44 billion at the worldwide box office, the film now heads into the prestigious ceremony with eight nominations at this year’s Academy Awards. “Oppenheimer” can even hope for a total of 13 golden boys.
Following this lead for Christopher Nolan’s latest antics, “Barbie” zooms beyond the period drama to another level: So the comedy awaits Margot Robbie And Ryan Gosling starting today, February 14, with a streaming subscription to WOW (formerly Sky), while we still have to wait a whole month for “Oppenheimer”. However, the film with Cillian Murphy will not be added to the streaming service’s program until March 20.
So if you want to refresh your memory after last year’s cinema trip or understand for the first time what the hype is about, now you have the chance to do so on WOW. If you don’t have a subscription to the streaming service, you have the option to purchase “Barbie” in DVD, Blu-ray and 4K versions on Amazon. The film is currently available there as video-on-demand for the bargain price of 9.98 euros.
This is “Barbie”
For Barbie (Margot Robbie), every day in Barbieland is wonderful. She meets the other Barbies (including Issa Rae, Emma Mackey, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan), visits Ken (Ryan Gosling) on the beach, dances the night away and throws pajama parties. But her utopian everyday life begins to crack when her owners (America Ferrara and Ariana Greenblatt) stop playing with her in the real world.
Suddenly, Barbie is plagued by melancholic thoughts and notices small imperfections that are part of women’s daily lives in the real world – but not in Barbieland. So she heads off to the parallel present to smooth things over, while Ken – in the eternal quest for Barbie’s approval – is hot on her heels. Together they face the social norms of the real world and recognize very different opportunities for change for Barbieland…
After winning the Golden Globes in the Cinematic And Box Office Achievement category, among others, ‘Barbie’ has a chance to win an Oscar in the categories Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrara, and Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Original Song for Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” as well as Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken”.
In our FILMSTARTS review, there were 4 stars for the comedy, which Christoph Petersen described as a “cult film with an announcement”. And while the ‘announcement’ here may not seem entirely new to many, Thanks to ‘Barbie’ it lands squarely in the mainstream as a brightly colored screen adventure with a thrilling plot and satirical comedy – and for that reason alone, Greta Gerwig’s work is certainly worth seeing for the author of these lines.