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Barbie review: Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig's visual confection plays a little too much like an advertisement

Traditional tentpoles just aren't cashing in anymore. Marvel's chokehold at the box office is loosening; Pixar's lost its steam. What's a Hollywood exec to do except throw a wad of cash at some decades-old IP?

This year alone, we've had adaptations based on Beanie Babies , BlackBerry , Tetris , and Air Jordans . Some might even be called films! None, though, have arrived as freighted with expectation as Barbie: the candyland adaptation of the 64-year-old doll that is, depending on who you ask, either the reigning girlboss or the worst thing to happen to children since measles.

Barbie, per its slightly cloying slogan, is aimed at both camps. "If you love Barbie, this movie is for you," its trailer proselytises. Then: "If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you."

For months preceding its release, Barbie's hype machine – simultaneously the most tireless and tiresome of any film in recent memory – has been ensuring its ubiquity, its utter monopoly over the cultural domain.

Spare a thought for the overworked and underslept PR peons behind the scenes: There are Barbie Xboxes , Barbie desserts , and Barbie burgers . There is a Barbie toothbrush set described as " the best oral beauty collection ever ". The tube stop for a certain London arts institution has been renamed the Barbiecan.

All of it, of course, is drenched in a highly specific shade of pink: a hue used so abundantly on the Barbie set that there was a worldwide paint shortage .

Needless to say, this is a work inseparable from its promotion. For its Mattel masterminds – if not necessarily for its director Greta Gerwig ( Lady Bird ; Little Women), who wrote the screenplay with her creative and romantic partner Noah Baumbach ( White Noise ; Marriage Story) – the brand is the point; an adaptation is merely an exercise in puffery.

So is it any good?

Well, it is certainly a movie – though it often plays like an extended advertisement, however tongue-in-cheek its screenplay may be.

Its narrative – which has remained notoriously mysterious throughout all of its frenzied marketing – splits time between two settings: There is Barbie Land, and there is the real world.

The former is a coastal idyll of lurid colour and beaming perfection. It is a Barbie oligarchy populated by dolls of all varieties: among others, a president (Issa Rae), a doctor (Hari Nef), a physicist (Emma Mackey) and a diplomat (Nicola Coughlan).

Barbie Land has eradicated the follies and foibles of human society; its inhabitants believe the real world is similarly utopian, constructed in their image. "Who am I to burst their bubble?" a narrator (Helen Mirren) intones.

Unmarred by outside intrusion, the Barbies roam around their isle in splendid harmony. Each male resident is relegated to second-class citizen: an Adonic himbo whose sole purpose in life is "just…beach", as put by Ryan Gosling's Ken, moments after he sprints full-speed towards a plastic ocean wave.

Like that wave, Barbie Land goes to great lengths to demonstrate its artificiality: The clothes sparkle with a CGI twinkle, characters float through the air, the sky is an uncanny shade of turquoise.

At the centre of it all is Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie, who also conceptualised and produced this film), who wakes each morning to a cheery chorus of greetings from her peers.

No sooner have we been plunged into this Edenic setting than strange rumblings begin to emerge. Ken is disgruntled at Barbie's lack of reciprocal affection; Barbie deals with the first glimmers of existential dread. Dolls: they're just like us!

Barbie's world is crumbling: Suddenly, her milk is "expired", her once-arched soles are flat, and she has developed – quelle horreur! – a single patch of cellulite.

(It all feels eerily close in structure to last year's Don't Worry Darling – that other Truman Show-indebted film about a glitching fantasy land.)

Before long, Stereotypical Barbie is whisked away for a rendezvous with Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon): an oracle-slash-outcast, spiky in both hair and manner, who's been exiled to a house in the hills along with her pooch Tanner – based on a defecating dog toy that was discontinued by Mattel in 2006 for its choking hazard.

The real world, Weird Barbie deduces, is leaking into theirs. In an effort to "restore the membrane" between the two realms, Stereotypical Barbie – with a surprise Ken in tow – wends her way past desert highways and frosty mountaintops to arrive in Venice Beach, where the pair bear witness to all the depravities of this place called Earth.

It is here that the film grows unwieldy.

Gerwig, to date, has excelled at tales of relationship tension streaked with neuroticism. As an actor, she garnered a reputation for her downbeat and inept mumblecore heroines. Meanwhile, the titular protagonists of her Oscar-nominated Lady Bird as well as Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha – which she co-wrote – stake their claim in the world with a healthy, mercurial disregard for polite society.

As her star has grown, so too have her films: "Her ambition is to be … a big studio director," her agent told the New Yorker earlier this year.

Barbie, in this sense, is capacious to a fault. It's so abundant in scope that the film often sacrifices Gerwig's greatest talent: observing and replicating human dysfunction.

Barbie and Ken might be caricatures – and rightfully so – but so are the people they meet outside of Barbie Land.

The contrarian adolescent Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother Gloria (America Ferrera) – Barbie's human owners – are so thinly sketched that they remain little more than ciphers for great tides of public opinion.

Sasha comes armed with every Barbie critique from the past six decades: she's promoting unhealthy bodies, she's an agent of consumerism, she's vapid and anti-intellectual. Gloria holds the exact inverse view; to her, Barbie is a bastion of aspirational womanhood who can – and should – shoulder the responsibility of representation.

Sasha and Gloria, inevitably, become entangled in Barbie's quest as she goes on the lam from her captors at a fictionalised version of Mattel. The mother-daughter duo spearheads a plot to reclaim Barbie Land from Ken, who, having tasted the spoils of patriarchy in the real world, has transformed into an Andrew Tate type – boxing gloves and all – and has brainwashed all the women around him into doting servants with brewski in hand.

It is mythical, operatic in scale.

But the film can't sustain such heaving plot demands, so unfocussed are its aims.

It is a film for kids that exaggerates its hammy antics and slapstick capers. It is an adult meta-comedy about the weight of womanhood – with a few throwaway lines about the Snyder Cut and Stephen Malkmus thrown in for good measure.

It is for the suits at Mattel – a studio with 45 toy adaptations currently in development, that makes $US1.5 billion in profit from Barbie annually, and indoctrinates any prospective filmmakers via a " brand immersion " experience. It is for reviewers, critic-proofing itself with increasingly tired asides and interjections to attest that yes, it is aware of Barbie's corporate associations.

It nods to camp, in all its aesthetic excess and fuschia hegemony. But the vision that triumphs is as straight and strait-jacketed as it ever has been, any attempts at diversity merely mirroring Mattel's own production line of Barbies – an endlessly iterating range of moneymakers designed to capture an ever-increasing sweep of minorities.

It winks at cinema nerds, proving its bona fides in a slew of visual references to Kubrick , Tati , Demy . But it aims for the general public, with its crowd-pleasing jokes, focus-grouped soundtrack, and one overlong monologue which plays like the best feminist manifesto of 2016.

By its own admission, it is a film for everyone – and therefore no-one.

For all its confectionary diversions, Barbie is a hardened attempt at wholesale appeal: as plastic as its candy-coloured sets.

Barbie is in cinemas now.

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"Barbie," director and co-writer Greta Gerwig ’s summer splash, is a dazzling achievement, both technically and in tone. It’s a visual feast that succeeds as both a gleeful escape and a battle cry. So crammed with impeccable attention to detail is "Barbie” that you couldn’t possibly catch it all in a single sitting; you’d have to devote an entire viewing just to the accessories, for example. The costume design (led by two-time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran ) and production design (led by six-time Oscar nominee Sarah Greenwood ) are constantly clever and colorful, befitting the ever-evolving icon, and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (a three-time Oscar nominee) gives everything a glossy gleam. It’s not just that Gerwig & Co. have recreated a bunch of Barbies from throughout her decades-long history, outfitted them with a variety of clothing and hairstyles, and placed them in pristine dream houses. It’s that they’ve brought these figures to life with infectious energy and a knowing wink.

“Barbie” can be hysterically funny, with giant laugh-out-loud moments generously scattered throughout. They come from the insularity of an idyllic, pink-hued realm and the physical comedy of fish-out-of-water moments and choice pop culture references as the outside world increasingly encroaches. But because the marketing campaign has been so clever and so ubiquitous, you may discover that you’ve already seen a fair amount of the movie’s inspired moments, such as the “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ” homage and Ken’s self-pitying ‘80s power ballad. Such is the anticipation industrial complex.

And so you probably already know the basic plot: Barbie ( Margot Robbie ), the most popular of all the Barbies in Barbieland, begins experiencing an existential crisis. She must travel to the human world in order to understand herself and discover her true purpose. Her kinda-sorta boyfriend, Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), comes along for the ride because his own existence depends on Barbie acknowledging him. Both discover harsh truths—and make new friends –along the road to enlightenment. This bleeding of stark reality into an obsessively engineered fantasy calls to mind the revelations of “ The Truman Show ” and “The LEGO Movie,” but through a wry prism that’s specifically Gerwig’s.

This is a movie that acknowledges Barbie’s unrealistic physical proportions—and the kinds of very real body issues they can cause in young girls—while also celebrating her role as a feminist icon. After all, there was an astronaut Barbie doll (1965) before there was an actual woman in NASA’s astronaut corps (1978), an achievement “Barbie” commemorates by showing two suited-up women high-fiving each other among the stars, with Robbie’s Earth-bound Barbie saluting them with a sunny, “Yay, space!” This is also a movie in which Mattel (the doll’s manufacturer) and Warner Bros. (the film’s distributor) at least create the appearance that they’re in on the surprisingly pointed jokes at their expense. Mattel headquarters features a spacious, top-floor conference room populated solely by men with a heart-shaped, “ Dr. Strangelove ”-inspired lamp hovering over the table, yet Will Ferrell ’s CEO insists his company’s “gender-neutral bathrooms up the wazoo” are evidence of diversity. It's a neat trick.

As the film's star, Margot Robbie finds just the right balance between satire and sincerity. She’s  the  perfect casting choice; it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed stunner completely looks the part, of course, but she also radiates the kind of unflagging, exaggerated optimism required for this heightened, candy-coated world. Later, as Barbie’s understanding expands, Robbie masterfully handles the more complicated dialogue by Gerwig and her co-writer and frequent collaborator, filmmaker Noah Baumbach . From a blinding smile to a single tear and every emotion in between, Robbie finds the ideal energy and tone throughout. Her performance is a joy to behold.

And yet, Ryan Gosling is a consistent scene-stealer as he revels in Ken’s himbo frailty. He goes from Barbie’s needy beau to a swaggering, macho doofus as he throws himself headlong into how he thinks a real man should behave. (Viewers familiar with Los Angeles geography will particularly get a kick out of the places that provide his inspiration.) Gosling sells his square-jawed character’s earnestness and gets to tap into his “All New Mickey Mouse Club” musical theater roots simultaneously. He’s a total hoot.

Within the film’s enormous ensemble—where the women are all Barbies and the men are all Kens, with a couple of exceptions—there are several standouts. They include a gonzo Kate McKinnon as the so-called “Weird Barbie” who places Robbie’s character on her path; Issa Rae as the no-nonsense President Barbie; Alexandra Shipp as a kind and capable Doctor Barbie; Simu Liu as the trash-talking Ken who torments Gosling’s Ken; and America Ferrera in a crucial role as a Mattel employee. And we can’t forget Michael Cera as the one Allan, bumbling awkwardly in a sea of hunky Kens—although everyone else forgets Allan.

But while “Barbie” is wildly ambitious in an exciting way, it’s also frustratingly uneven at times. After coming on strong with wave after wave of zippy hilarity, the film drags in the middle as it presents its more serious themes. It’s impossible not to admire how Gerwig is taking a big swing with heady notions during the mindless blockbuster season, but she offers so many that the movie sometimes stops in its propulsive tracks to explain itself to us—and then explain those points again and again. The breezy, satirical edge she established off the top was actually a more effective method of conveying her ideas about the perils of toxic masculinity and entitlement and the power of female confidence and collaboration.

One character delivers a lengthy, third-act speech about the conundrum of being a woman and the contradictory standards to which society holds us. The middle-aged mom in me was nodding throughout in agreement, feeling seen and understood, as if this person knew me and was speaking directly to me. But the longtime film critic in me found this moment a preachy momentum killer—too heavy-handed, too on-the-nose, despite its many insights.  

Still, if such a crowd-pleasing extravaganza can also offer some fodder for thoughtful conversations afterward, it’s accomplished several goals simultaneously. It’s like sneaking spinach into your kid’s brownies—or, in this case, blondies.

Available in theaters on July 21st. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Barbie (2023)

Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language.

114 minutes

Margot Robbie as Barbie

Ryan Gosling as Ken

America Ferrera as Gloria

Will Ferrell as Mattel CEO

Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie

Ariana Greenblatt as Sasha

Issa Rae as President Barbie

Rhea Perlman as Ruth Handler

Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie

Emma Mackey as Physicist Barbie

Alexandra Shipp as Writer Barbie

Michael Cera as Allan

Helen Mirren as Narrator

Simu Liu as Ken

Dua Lipa as Mermaid Barbie

John Cena as Kenmaid

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Ken

Scott Evans as Ken

Jamie Demetriou as Mattel Executive

• Greta Gerwig
• Noah Baumbach

Cinematographer

• Rodrigo Prieto
• Alexandre Desplat
• Mark Ronson

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Barbie First Reviews: Hysterically Funny, Perfectly Cast, and Affectionately Crafted

Critics say greta gerwig's send-up of the iconic doll is a thoughtfully self-aware, laugh-out-loud comedy that benefits from a flawless margot robbie and a scene-stealing ryan gosling..

TAGGED AS: Comedy , First Reviews , movies

Here’s what critics are saying about Barbie :

Is the movie funny?

“ Barbie can be hysterically funny, with giant laugh-out-loud moments generously scattered throughout.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Often funny, occasionally very funny, but sometimes also somehow demure and inhibited, as if the urge to be funny can only be mean and satirical.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The entire screenplay is packed with winking one-liners, the kind that reward a rewatch.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“One of the funniest comedies of the year.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Will fans of Greta Gerwig’s other movies enjoy Barbie?

“In some ways, Barbie builds on themes Gerwig explored in Lady Bird and Little Women .” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

“ Barbie balances the incredibly pointed specificity of the jokes and relatability of Lady Bird , with the celebration of women and the ability to show a new angle of something we thought we knew like we saw with Gerwig’s take on Little Women .” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“Never doubt Gerwig.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

(Photo by ©Warner Bros. Pictures)

How is the script?

“It’s almost shocking how much this duo gets away with in this script, and in certain moments, like a major speech by America Ferrera’s Gloria, who works at Mattel, it’s beautiful that some of these scenes can exist in a big-budget summer film like this.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“One character delivers a lengthy, third-act speech about the conundrum of being a woman and the contradictory standards to which society holds us… [and it’s] a preachy momentum killer — too heavy-handed, too on-the-nose, despite its many insights. ” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“The moments that aren’t just laughing at and with the crowd, however, are shoved into long, important monologues that, with each recitation, dull the impact of their message.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Does it stick the landing?

“The second half of Barbie bogs down a bit.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

”It’s frustratingly uneven at times. After coming on strong with wave after wave of zippy hilarity, the film drags in the middle as it presents its more serious themes.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

How does it look?

“It’s a visual feast.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Highest honors to production designer Sarah Greenwood, costume designer Jacqueline Durran and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

How is Margot Robbie as Barbie?

“She’s the perfect casting choice; it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role… Her performance is a joy to behold.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“She gives an impressively transformative performance, moving her arms and joints like they’re actually made of plastic.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“Anything Gerwig and Baumbach’s verbally dexterous script requires, from Barbie’s first teardrop to the final punchline, Robbie handles with unerring precision.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

“Robbie is simply incredible in the title role… She has often excelled in these types of roles where we see the power a woman truly has in her environment, but there might not be a better example of that than in Barbie .” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

What about Ryan Gosling’s Ken?

“For an actor who’s spent much of his career brooding moodily, here, he finally gets to tap into his inner Mousketeer.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“Ryan Gosling is a consistent scene-stealer… He’s a total hoot.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Ken allows Gosling to go broad in a way that we’ve never seen him go before, and the result is charming, bizarre, and one of the most hysterical performances of the year.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Does it feel like a toy commercial?

“It’s Gerwig’s care and attention to detail that gives Barbie an actual point of view, elevating it beyond every other cynical, IP-driven cash grab.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“ Barbie could’ve just been a commercial, but Gerwig makes this life of plastic into something truly fantastic.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“This movie is perhaps a giant two-hour commercial for a product, although no more so than The Lego Movie , yet Barbie doesn’t go for the comedy jugular anywhere near as gleefully as that.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The muddied politics and flat emotional landing of Barbie are signs that the picture ultimately serves a brand.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Are there any big problems?

“If the film has a flaw, it’s that Barbie and Ken are so delightful that their real-world counterparts feel dull by comparison.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“The only segment of Barbie that doesn’t work as well as it maybe should is the addition of Mattel into this narrative.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“Because the marketing campaign has been so clever and so ubiquitous, you may discover that you’ve already seen a fair amount of the movie’s inspired moments.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

Who is the movie ultimately for?

“ Barbie works hard to entertain both 11-year-old girls and the parents who’ll bring them to the theater.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“ Barbie doesn’t have that tiring air of trying to be everything to everybody. With luck, and a big opening, it might actually find the audience it deserves just by being its curious, creative, buoyant self.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

Barbie opens in theaters everywhere on July 21, 2023.

Thumbnail image by ©Warner Bros. Pictures

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Barbie Review

A hyper-femme roller-coaster ride full of twists and turns as emotional as they are entertaining.

What’s tall and blonde and plastic all over? The subject of what’s shaping up to be the movie of the summer, of course. Barbie is a hyper-femme roller-coaster ride full of twists and turns as emotional as they are entertaining. Greta Gerwig’s triumphant take on the statuesque icon is a poignant picture of the rocky transition from girlhood to womanhood. It’s a powerful celebration of femininity, one that recognizes its contradictions, its joys, its frustrations, its limitations, and its freedoms.

Gerwig brings a nuance to the script (co-written with her personal and professional partner, Noah Baumbach), which both reveres our pretty-in-pink Vitruvian woman while remaining critical of what she’s come to symbolize. Under Gerwig’s direction, Barbies and Kens frolic beneath the sunlit skies of Barbieland. It’s the ultimate dollhouse, the dream Mattel (Barbie’s on- and off-screen manufacturer) has pedaled to children for generations. And, oh , is it pink. Name a shade and expect to find it. Salmon? Check. Rose? You got it. Hot? Just ask that Barbie sun. Millennial? Well what would this movie be without it? But while it brims with possibility and excitement, Barbie’s everyday life is a pattern on repeat – a perfect cycle complete with Lizzo’s earworm of a sitcom-y showtune “Pink.” It’s an illusion of choice where the only option is uniform perfection.

This is the crux of Barbieland. Things are simply as they should be. Women are doctors, reporters, construction workers, Supreme Court justices, the president. And Ken meanwhile is, well, really just Ken. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is stellar, mixing fully functional props with sets more akin to the fantasy of a dollhouse.

Each Barbie and Ken shines in their childlike optimism and enthusiasm, playing to the audience with a charming lack of sophistication. The ensemble cast is brilliant: Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Alexandra Shipp, and their castmates bring enough distinctions to their Barbies and Kens to keep Barbieland from becoming a realm of mindless clones. Like a child’s game of dolls, this is a rollicking society full of personality and interpersonal relationships. Ryan Gosling especially stands out, somehow managing to make a subplot that boils down to “Ken Discovers Sexism” into something that lets us feel for Barbie’s eternal sidekick. His airheaded harmlessness inspires a sort of puppy-dog sympathy that made me agonize over his introduction to the dogmatic misogyny that plagues society.

Robbie is the star of the show, of course. It’s the role she was born for, her megawatt charisma brilliantly matched to the world’s most famous doll. Robbie imbues her performance with a layer of naive optimism that’s slowly torn away by the realities of the Real World (a setting treated as a proper noun in the script and on a prop billboard). It’s heartbreaking to watch. As with Ken, I desperately wanted Barbie to remain ignorant to the social woes of the real world, and watched with dread as she uncovers new layers of self-consciousness. There’s no doubt that Robbie deserves award attention for the awe-inspiring balancing act she nails as the film’s veneer of silliness peels back to reveal something much deeper.

Like Gosling and Margot Robbie, America Ferrera is unquestionably perfect in her role. Growing up an awkward Latina, Ferrera was as much a childhood icon to me as Barbie ever was and it’s thrilling to watch the woman who helped shape my adolescence drive home the most pivotal themes of the movie. As Gloria, a Mattel employee living in the Real World, Ferrera commands gravity as our POV character. She serves as the ultimate reminder that it is our mothers who experienced the complex contradictions of womanhood before us. Beneath the trappings of adulthood remains the child we were, unsure and anxious but moving forward anyway.

Barbenheimer: Which movie are you seeing first?

Barbie’s choice to allow its fantasy to seep into the real world is inspired. Yes, this is the reality we know – full of catcallers and cruelty and corporate suits – but it’s not so grittily real that it stifles the fun. The labyrinthine offices of Mattel exemplifies this, and a zany CEO character (Will Ferrell) highlights it. Even the “portal” from the real world to Barbieland commits to this playfulness, introducing a nebulous method of reaching either realm that’s comically childlike but accepted by those in the Real World as a matter of course.

Cycles of life and age act as an important theme in the film. In a stirring moment, Barbie encounters an elderly woman at a bus stop and simply says: “you’re beautiful.” She whispers it with such reverence, as if uttering a cosmic truth about the miracle of aging. To live a life of experience not defined by the number of jobs you’ve had but by the mark of every single day you wake up. It’s a reminder that Barbie is both eternally young and yet also older than many of us.

This is Gerwig’s power: to take an ageless icon of femininity and remind us that as much as she as she defined us, we will forever continue to define her. There’s a deeply held understanding in this film that the capitalist feminism Barbie represents is inherently flawed – women will not find liberation through professional excellence alone, not when entire systems thrive upon our subjugation. Likewise, Gerwig’s film calls into question the limitations of “representation” as a means of social progress. Sure, the Barbies of Barbieland have every job one could possibly imagine. But who sits in the boardroom making every decision about her? If I had one wish, it’s only that we got to dive a little deeper into Barbie’s impact on beauty standards – even if we do get a fun, fourth-wall-breaking joke about it.

That said, there’s such an incisive understanding here of what it means to go from girl to woman. As Barbie “matures,” so to speak, it’s both fraught and wonderful. There’s an insightful beauty in the ending of this film, anchoring Barbie’s mark of growth not in necessarily landing a career, but in, for instance, comfortably accessing women’s healthcare for the very first time.

Brimming with love for a long-standing cultural cornerstone, Barbie reminds us that there’s a safety in childhood we will always inevitably lose. It’s nostalgic and therefore bittersweet. It asks an important question: If the woman society looks to as a guiding example has fears too, why do we put such pressure on ourselves to live without anxieties or regrets? Embrace the unknown, Barbie tells us, and feel comfort in knowing you’re not the first to feel scared.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a masterful exploration of femininity and the pressures of perfection. This hyper-femme roller-coaster ride boasts meticulous production design, immaculate casting, and a deep-seated reverence for Barbie herself. Margot Robbie sparkles at the center of the film, alongside Ryan Gosling’s airheaded Ken and America Ferrera’s well-meaning Gloria. Ultimately, Barbie is a new, bold, and very pink entry into the cinematic coming-of-age canon. Absolutely wear your pinkest outfit to see this movie, but make sure you bring tissues along too.

More Reviews by Alyssa Mora

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‘Barbie’ Review: Greta Gerwig Goes Way Outside the Box with Her Funny, Feminist Fantasia

Kate erbland, editorial director.

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But just as Kubrick’s apes eventually met by an alien monolith that utterly changed their world and worldview, Greta Gerwig ‘s little girls are about to be descended upon by a world-altering and brain-breaking new entity: a giant, one might even say monolithic, Barbie doll, in the form of a smiling Margot Robbie , kitted out like the very first Barbie doll ever made . And thus spake Barbie . That’s where Gerwig’s funny, feminist, and wildly original “Barbie” begins. It will only get bigger, weirder, smarter, and better from there. Related Stories ‘House of the Dragon’ Episode 7 Review: Targaryen Blood Prevails (and Spills) in One of the Show’s Most Thrilling Sequences Roland Emmerich on Why He Backed Out of ‘Fantastic Voyage’ Remake with James Cameron: ‘He Is Very Overbearing’

Imagine, if you can, a world split in two upon the release of the first Barbie doll in 1959. There’s the real world (known in the film as, of course, “The Real World”), and then there’s the seemingly idyllic (and very plastic) Barbie Land, which exists on the premise that the invention of Barbie (the doll) so drastically, so completely, and so positively impacted the real world that she (the doll) basically solved feminism. As far as the Barbies (and attendant Kens) who populate Barbie Land know, the Real World is a wonderful place for women (because Barbie Land very much is), and the female-forward world they happily clatter through is just a reflection of what happens in the flesh-and-blood universe.

This Barbie (like, it seems, all Barbies) has a great day every day. Her Stereotypical Ken ( a delightfully unhinged Ryan Gosling )? He only has a good day when Barbie pays attention to him, and Barbie is pretty busy. Gerwig guides us through a typical Barbie day with meticulous attention to detail (both impressive and incredibly amusing). Her Barbie Dream House? It doesn’t have windows, or working stairs, or running water. She can get wherever she wants to go by simply jumping (just like a child might move their doll, foisting them from spot to spot with little care for logic). Her hands are stiff. Her food is nonexistent. Her life is perfect. Robbie’s dedication to the gag, along with co-stars Rae, Shipp, Mackey, Hari Nef, and Nicola Coughlan is profound, and boy, does it pay off.

That truth: She must go to the Real World and mend the rip in the temporal fabric that keeps Barbie Land and the Real World distinctly different. And while Barbie, initially resistant to the fate before her, eventually takes on the challenge with verve and vigor, the questions start piling up: How different are Barbie Land and the Real World? If what happens in the Real World can impact Barbie Land, is the reverse true? And why the hell is Ken in the backseat of Barbie’s hot pink car as it cruises straight into La-La Land?

Once in the Real World, Barbie and Ken’s twinned realizations of what it’s actually like unfold at a lopsided pace. Barbie is confused by everyone’s behavior, not just the men who leer and the women who scoff, but especially that of Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), a sassy teen whom she believes is her longtime owner, the very person suffering from angst so deep it ripped a hole between the Real World and Barbie Land. Gerwig and co-writer and longtime partner Noah Baumbach steadily lift the veil (or, as the case may be, rip their own temporal fabric) as Barbie is beset by the truth of the Real World (not feminist), Barbie Land (also not feminist), and her place in both.

Gerwig and Baumbach’s venture into the Real World is absolutely necessary — it unlocks the film’s thesis after besieging us with diverting fun, gives us the darling Greenblatt and her Barbie-obsessed mom Gloria (America Ferrera, who runs off with the film’s last act), and allows Will Ferrell to go nuts as the wacky (male!) CEO of Mattel. However, it’s not nearly as fun, fantastic, and entertaining as the rich world of Barbie Land — that’s the point. Thankfully, we’re back there soon enough, though it’s been hugely altered by the full force of a returning (and, dare we say it, red-pilled) Ken, who uses all his newfound male rage and patriarchal power to upend what was once a lady-powered idyll. Barbie? She’s having a bad day.

Gerwig, as ever, has assembled a stellar supporting cast. All Barbies delight, but the Kens, appropriately enough, launch a real sneak attack, especially Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Michael Cera nearly makes off with the whole thing as the singular sidekick Allan. There’s also a murderer’s row of below-the-line talent: Opuses can and will be written about Sarah Greenwood’s production design and Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. “Barbie” is a lovingly crafted blockbuster with a lot on its mind, the kind of feature that will surely benefit from repeat viewings (there is so much to see, so many jokes to catch) and is still purely entertaining even in a single watch.

It’s Barbie’s world, and we’re all just living in it. How fantastic.

Warner Bros. releases “Barbie” in theaters on Friday, July 21.

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Movie Review: She’s Perfect Barbie. He’s Scene-Stealing Ken. Their life in plastic looks fantastic

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Ryan Gosling, left, and Margot Robbie in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

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This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Margot Robbie in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Kingsley Ben-Adir, from left, Ryan Gosling and Ncuti Gatwa in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP).

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Kate McKinnon in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows, from left, Emma Mackey, Simu Liu, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Kingsley Ben-Adir in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Issa Rae, from left, Scott Evans, Simu Liu, Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Margot Robbie, from left, Alexandra Shipp, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt and America Ferrera in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Simu Liu in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

For someone who’s 11.5 inches tall and weighs under 8 ounces, poor Barbie’s had to carry an awfully heavy load over the years on that slender, plastic back of hers.

Welcomed as a trailblazer in 1959 — An adult doll! With actual breasts! — she was nonetheless branded an anti-feminist a decade later when women’s rights marchers chanted “I Am Not a Barbie Doll,” referring to her unrealistic body type (and perhaps ignoring the fact that she was single, a homeowner and a career woman).

As years went by, Barbie had her hits (adopting a more inclusive body type, running for president) and misses (exclaiming “Math class is TOUGH!” — ouch). Through it all, this lightning rod in tiny pink heels remained uniquely talented at reinventing herself.

Which is why it makes sense that now, writer-director Greta Gerwig takes Barbie in more than one direction – in every direction, really – in her brash, clever, idea-packed (if ultimately TOO packed) and most of all, eye-poppingly lovely “Barbie,” the brand’s first live action movie.

Is it a celebratory homage to Barbie and her history? Yes. Also a cutting critique, and biting satire? Yes, too. The film is co-produced by Mattel, and they must have felt skittish about some elements — perhaps not Will Ferrell’s reliably buffoonish Mattel CEO, but a far more serious scene where a young girl accuses Barbie of making girls feel bad about themselves. The movie’s also about gender dynamics, mothers and daughters, insidious sexism ... and more.

But the neatest trick is how “Barbie,” starring a pitch-perfect Margot Robbie — and after a minute you’ll never be able to imagine anyone else doing it — can simultaneously and smoothly both mock and admire its source material. Gerwig deftly threads that needle, even if the film sags in its second half under the weight of its many ideas and some less-than-developed character arcs.

In any case, boy — or should we say, girl — life in plastic looks fantastic.

A head-spinning opening credits sequence begins with a Barbie history lesson, narrated by Helen Mirren. Then it’s off to Barbie Land, where Barbie lives in her flamingo-pink Dreamhouse, surrounded by other Barbies in theirs.

Other Barbies? Well, we know how many Barbie versions exist on store shelves, and Gerwig and her writing (and life) partner Noah Baumbach take this one step further: If they’re all Barbies, that means “Barbie” is all of THEM. There’s no one Barbie — although Robbie, who plays Stereotypical Barbie (and also produced the film), is the focal point.

And every day’s perfect for Stereotypical Barbie, who wakes in her heart-shaped bed, waves to neighbor Barbies, and heads to the shower, which is dry (there’s no actual water, wind, sun or gravity in Barbie Land.) Her day’s outfit awaits, perhaps a Chanel number, protected by shiny plastic as in a Barbie box. Then she swoops down her hot pink slide to the pool-with-no-water. The sky above is painted blue, the mountains purple. Gerwig was inspired by old soundstage musicals. Architectural Digest even did a piece on the house.

Equally stunning is “Beach” — a place, and also the name of Ken’s career. (Sorry Ken, we should have mentioned you before the 11th paragraph, but we had so much to say about Barbie). The beach is also apparently where Ken lives, because, have you ever heard of Ken’s house? In any case, a very blond Ryan Gosling gleefully chews the scenery — or, inhales it — and is never better than when conveying Ken’s forced enthusiasm with an edge of desperation plus a sprinkle of menace. Also, when dancing.

Speaking of dancing, one night at Barbie’s “giant blowout party,” she suddenly starts thinking about … death. The next morning she has bad breath, and OMG, her famously arched feet go flat! Also gravity happens, so she falls off her house.

After consulting with Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon — who else?) Barbie heads to LA to solve a tear in the boundary between Real World and Barbie Land, singing the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine,” her signature road song. (The film’s high-powered soundtrack features Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj, HAIM, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and many others.) There, she and Ken encounter a world with a wrinkle: Men have the upper hand. No all-female Supreme Court here! Hmm, thinks Ken.

On the run from Mattel, Barbie encounters Gloria (America Ferrera), mother of tween Sasha, who has mixed feelings about Barbie, not to mention Mom. In her spare time, Gloria sketches ideas for new Barbies — as in Thoughts of Impending Death Barbie (not to be confused with Depression Barbie.) Gloria helps rescue Barbie and also proves of crucial help when they later discover that Ken and the other Kens — Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and others — are up to no good.

There’s so much more, and we’re over our word limit — which may just be the feeling Gerwig had when trying to fit her ideas under two hours. And all her actors: It would’ve been great to see more Issa Rae as President Barbie, Emerald Fennell as pregnant, discontinued Midge, and Michael Cera as Allan-who-can-wear-Ken’s-clothes. In any case, the snappy pace starts to lag.

Not to discount Ferrera’s eloquent monologue, in which Gloria educates newly conscious Barbie about the landmines women face trying to navigate social rules that don’t seem to apply to men, like how to be a mom and also a professional, the need to be “thin” but call it “healthy,” and other things.

And if, Gloria concludes, all this is true for a doll just trying to represent a woman ... what does that mean for the rest of us? Which is, perhaps, the essential Barbie dilemma — she’s always been judged by rather impossible standards.

Nevertheless, she persists. All 11.5 inches of her. And now she’s Movie Star Barbie.

“Barbie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, has been rated PG-13 “for suggestive references and brief language.” Running time: 114 minutes. Three stars out of four.

MPAA definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Barbie review: A near-miraculous achievement from Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie

While it’s impossible for any studio film to be truly subversive, this mattel-approved comedy gets away with far more than you’d think was possible, article bookmarked.

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Barbie is one of the most inventive, immaculately crafted and surprising mainstream films in recent memory – a testament to what can be achieved within even the deepest bowels of capitalism. It’s timely, too, arriving a week after the creative forces behind these stories began striking for their right to a living wage and the ability to work without the threat of being replaced by an AI. It’s a pink-splattered manifesto to the power of irreplaceable creative labour and imagination.

While it’s impossible for any studio film to be truly subversive, especially when consumer culture has caught on to the idea that self-awareness is good for business (there’s nothing that companies love more these days than to feel like they’re in on the joke), Barbie gets away with far more than you’d think was possible. It’s a project that writer-director Greta Gerwig , co-writer (plus real-life partner and frequent collaborator) Noah Baumbach, and producer-star Margot Robbie were free to work on in relative privacy, holed up during the pandemic away from the meddlesome impulses of Warner Bros and Mattel executives.

The results are appropriately free-wheeling: There are nods to Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Jacques Tati’s Playtime , deployment of soundstage sets and dance choreography à la Hollywood’s musical Golden Age, and a mischievous streak of corporate satire that calls to mind 2001’s cult classic Josie and the Pussycats . But while the absurdity of its humour sits somewhere between It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure , its earnest and vulnerable take on womanhood is pure Gerwig, serving as a direct continuation of her Lady Bird and Little Women .

The fact that all of this is tied to one of the most recognisable products in existence – and that any success it enjoys will undoubtedly boost Mattel’s stock prices – underlines the fact that it’s largely impossible to embrace art without embracing hypocrisy. Capitalism doesn’t always swallow art whole; occasionally it thrives in spite of it. And that’s a complexity that feels particularly on brand for a director who had her Jo March, in Little Women , declare: “I am so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it! But – I am so lonely.”

Barbie contains another Gerwig-ian speech, delivered beautifully by an ordinary (human) mum played by America Ferrera, about the hellish trap women have been forced into. Caught between girl-boss feminism and outright misogyny, women now have to be rich, thin, liberated, and eternally grateful without ever breaking a sweat – because when Barbie promised little girls that “women can be anything”, those words got twisted to mean “women should be everything”. Gerwig’s movie begins by playing a brilliant trick on its audience: Helen Mirren’s opening narration is self-congratulatory, a bit of canned PR about Barbie’s “girl power” legacy that grows increasingly tongue-in-cheek. “Thanks to Barbie,” she concludes, “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved”.

We’re then introduced to our Barbie – ie “the Stereotypical Barbie” – who is chipper, confident, blonde, and, most importantly, looks like Margot Robbie. She is eternally adored by Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), whose job is “beach”. Not “lifeguard”, but “beach”. Barbie’s friends all have high-powered jobs: president (Issa Rae), author (Alexandra Shipp), physicist (Emma Mackey), doctor (Hari Nef), and lawyer (Sharon Rooney). Every morning, she steps into her shower (there’s no water), sets out her breakfast of a heart-shaped waffle with a dollop of whipped cream (she doesn’t eat), and then sets off in her pink convertible (she doesn’t walk downstairs, but merely floats). All is perfect. Then Barbie starts having irrepressible thoughts of death.

Barbie’s bid to fix that sudden, scary attack of humanity sees her visit “the Real World”, where she meets the all-male executive board of Mattel (among them Will Ferrell and a wonderfully dorky Jamie Demetriou), who think themselves qualified to determine what little girls like and need because they once had a woman CEO (or two, maybe). Meanwhile, Gerwig uses, through a hysterical farce centred around Gosling and his fellow Kens, the implicit matriarchy of Barbieland to explore how power and visibility shape a person’s self-perception. Gosling gives an all-timer of a comedic performance, one that’s part-baby, part-Zoolander, part-maniac, and 100 per cent a validation for anyone who ever liked him in 2016’s noir comedy The Nice Guys . There are (naturally) some exquisite outfits designed by Jacqueline Durran, some very funny references to discontinued Barbies (have fun reading up on the backstory behind Earring Magic Ken), and a few unexpected pops at fans of Duolingo, Top Gun , and Zack Snyder’s Justice League .

Barbie is joyous from minute to minute to minute. But it’s where the film ends up that really cements the near-miraculousness of Gerwig’s achievement. Very late in the movie, a conversation is had that neatly sums up one of the great illusions of capitalism – that creations exist independently from those that created them. It’s why films and television shows get turned into “content”, and why writers and actors end up exploited and demeaned. Barbie , in its own sly, silly way, gets to the very heart of why these current strikes are so necessary.

Dir: Greta Gerwig. Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell. 12A, 114 minutes.

‘Barbie’ is in cinemas from 21 July

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Barbie review: Welcome to Greta Gerwig's fiercely funny, feminist Dreamhouse

The Barbie movie could’ve been another forgettable, IP-driven cash grab. Instead, the director of Little Women and Lady Bird has crafted a neon pink delight.

Devan Coggan (rhymes with seven slogan) is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. Most of her personality is just John Mulaney quotes and Lord of the Rings references.

When Warner Bros. announced plans to launch a Barbie movie, the entire premise sounded a bit like a game of Hollywood Mad Libs gone wrong: Quick, name a beloved indie director ( Greta Gerwig !), an unadapted piece of intellectual property (Barbie dolls!), and an adjective (neon pink!). Every new piece of information that trickled out on the (lengthy) press tour seemed stranger than the last. Gerwig ( Lady Bird , Little Women ) cited 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gene Kelly musicals as her biggest inspirations. Elaborate dance numbers were teased. Ryan Gosling gave a lot of quotes about something called " Kenergy ." What actually was this movie, and could it possibly live up to all that hot pink buzz?

The verdict? Never doubt Gerwig. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker has crafted a fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure that dares you to laugh and cry, even if you're made of plastic. It's certainly the only summer blockbuster to pair insightful criticisms of the wage gap with goofy gags about Kens threatening to "beach" each other off.

The film (in theaters this Friday) whisks viewers away to Barbie Land, a candy-colored toy box wonderland of endless sunshine. It's there that our titular heroine ( Margot Robbie ) spends her days, each just as magical and neon as the one before. There are always other Barbies to party with — including Doctor Barbie ( Hari Nef ), President Barbie ( Issa Rae ), and Mermaid Barbie ( Dua Lipa ) — as well as an endless supply of devoted Kens, led by Gosling's frequently shirtless boy-toy. It's a plastic paradise for Robbie's Stereotypical Barbie, the type of doll that immediately comes to mind when you think of Barbie.

But something's gone wrong. Her Malibu Dreamhouse malfunctions; her mind is clouded by un-Barbie-like thoughts of death; and her perfectly arched feet now fall flat on the floor. So, our heroine sets out to seek some answers from Barbie Land's pseudo mystic, Weird Barbie ( Kate McKinnon ), who says a rift has opened up between their world and the real world, and she must brave the long trek to Los Angeles to find the human playing with her doll to remedy the situation. You bet her ever-loyal Ken (Gosling) is coming along for the ride.

Once Barbie and Ken begin roller-blading around L.A., however, they both realize that they've essentially entered a mirror dimension. Where are the female presidents, the CEOs, the astronauts? Barbie was supposed to empower young girls to dream big, but she hasn't had the feminist effect she anticipated — and in fact, she might have made things worse. Gerwig tackles the doll's complicated legacy head on, exploring how Barbie's reputation here isn't one of leadership or creativity but of corporatized objectification. Barbie herself is horrified, facing crude comments and misogyny for the first time in her (plastic) life. But to Ken, this newfound idea of patriarchy is intoxicating, and he quickly enters a spiral of masculinity, luxuriating in trucks, cowboy hats, and the addictive thrill of power.

Gosling has already scored praise for his earnest himbo performance, and in truth, he steals the show. For an actor who's spent much of his career brooding moodily (see: Blade Runner 2049 , Drive , First Man ), here, he finally gets to tap into his inner Mouseketeer , dramatically draping himself at Barbie's feet or breaking into a shirtless power ballad called "I'm Just Ken." His Ken has very little going on inside his brain, but his heart is brimming with emotion: love and admiration for Barbie, a longing for masculine validation, and a wide-eyed curiosity about the world around him.

Robbie still remains the real star of Barbie . Physically, the blonde Australian actress already looks like she stepped out of a Mattel box (something the film itself plays on during one particular gag), but she gives an impressively transformative performance, moving her arms and joints like they're actually made of plastic. Robbie has brought a manic physicality to previous films including Babylon and Birds of Prey , but she now embraces physical comedy to the max. (At one point, she face-plants on the floor, limbs askew like a toy dropped by a toddler.) As Barbie begins to discover more about the real world, Robbie's performance gradually shifts to become more human. One of the most moving moments comes about halfway through the film, as Barbie perches quietly on a park bench, silently observing the humans around her.

If the film has a flaw, it's that Barbie and Ken are so delightful that their real-world counterparts feel dull by comparison. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt play a frazzled mother and her sardonic teen daughter, who've drifted apart over time. Ferrera fills her days at her boring Mattel office job by doodling alternative Barbies, ones that are plagued by cellulite or haunted by thoughts of death. Her feminist daughter is dismissive of everything Barbie represents, dressing down Robbie with a pointed sneer. Ferrera admirably delivers one of the film's biggest emotional speeches, but surprisingly, the human characters never feel quite as lived-in as their plastic doll companions.

Still, Barbie works hard to entertain both 11-year-old girls and the parents who'll bring them to the theater. Gerwig co-wrote the script with her partner and longtime collaborator Noah Baumbach , and the entire screenplay is packed with winking one-liners, the kind that reward a rewatch. The fear is that Hollywood will learn the wrong message from Barbie, rushing to green-light films about every toy gathering dust on a kid's playroom floor. (What's next, The Funko Pop Movie? Furby: Fully Loaded? We already have a Bobbleheads movie , so maybe we're already there.) But it's Gerwig's care and attention to detail that gives Barbie an actual point of view , elevating it beyond every other cynical, IP-driven cash grab. Turns out that life in plastic really can be fantastic. Grade: A-

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Review: With Robbie in pink and Gosling in mink, ‘Barbie’ (wink-wink) will make you think

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Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” an exuberant, sometimes exhaustingly clever piece of Mattelian neorealism, opens with an extended, heavily trailer-spoiled homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” We’re at a drab early moment in the history of the toy industry; for too long, little girls everywhere have had only their sad, uninspiring baby dolls to play with — until now, at this fateful dawn-of-mannequin moment. Hello, dolly! But really, hello, Barbie, played by Margot Robbie with a megawatt grin and impeccable coiffure, modeling a black-and-white swimsuit and towering over the primordial landscape on skyscraper legs. She’s a marvel of (anatomically incorrect) engineering, a citadel of plasticine perfection and, to judge by her immense popularity, a major evolutionary leap forward.

Whether or not Barbie has ever represented an advance, of course, has been fiercely debated since Ruth Handler created her in 1959. Did Barbie, with her can-do spirit and variegated career possibilities, offer young girls a positive model of be-whatever-you-want-to-be womanhood? Or did her bombshell proportions and impossible chest-to-waist ratio entrench the kinds of cruelly unforgiving beauty standards that second-wave feminism was just beginning to interrogate?

Decades later, conversations around female self-image, representation, agency and empowerment have shifted, to say the least, as have personal and public attitudes toward Barbie herself. She has been attacked and defended, dismissed as a punchline and reclaimed as a pioneer. She has diversified with the times (new races, new body types and, as always, new clothes). In recent years, she’s also experienced plummeting sales and a diminished cultural profile, which of course explains why — after countless small-screen animated Barbie movies, series and specials — she now has a live-action theatrical feature to call her own.

Opinion: Yes, Barbie is a feminist — just don’t ask her creators

Looking at her history and evolution, Barbie is clearly a strong, independent woman — the sort advocated by all four waves of feminism.

July 16, 2023

Really, though, that explains this movie only in part. Whatever you think of “Barbie,” the mere existence of this smart, funny, conceptually playful, sartorially dazzling comic fantasy speaks to the irreverent wit and meta-critical sensibility of its director. (It also owes something, I suppose, to Mattel’s willingness to endure some modestly scathing satire in the pursuit of ever-greater profits.) Working again with her co-writer, Noah Baumbach (“Mistress America,” “Frances Ha”), Gerwig has conceived “Barbie” as a bubble-gum emulsion of silliness and sophistication, a picture that both promotes and deconstructs its own brand. It doesn’t just mean to renew the endless “Barbie: good or bad?” debate. It wants to enact that debate, to vigorously argue both positions for the better part of two fast-moving, furiously multitasking hours.

The case for the Barbie defense is presented by the Barbies themselves. There are a lot of them walking, talking, dancing, doing the splits and consuming nonexistent meals in the groovy pinktacular paradise that is Barbie Land, where life is a beach party by day and a dance party by night. The Barbies dwell in sisterly harmony and blissful self-fulfillment, each with her own meticulously furnished Barbie Dreamhouse and endlessly colorful wardrobe. Each one also has her role to play, whether she’s President Barbie (Issa Rae), Dr. Barbie (Hari Nef), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney) or even Mermaid Barbie (Dua Lipa), popping up from behind some delightfully fake-looking ocean waves. (If you’ll permit a “Barbenheimer” joke, I must point out the existence of Emma Mackey as Physicist Barbie, who presumably discovered the secrets of nuclear fuchsian.)

Tiptoeing into the spotlight on perfectly arched feet is Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie, whose self-mocking name and lead-heroine status are a handy example of Gerwig’s have-it-both-ways attitude. Although surrounded by Barbies (and Kens, but more on them later) of various shapes, sizes and colors, Stereotypical Barbie is Barbie: white, blond and svelte, in line with our earliest, most lasting impressions of the doll formally named Barbara Millicent Roberts. To say that Robbie is perfectly cast is an understatement (her surname alone could be a Barbie/Roberts portmanteau), though that very perfection underscores the movie’s problem: Can you really call out and perpetuate a stereotype at the same time? Would it have been better — more daring, and also more interesting — to tell the story from a less classically molded Barbie’s perspective?

Perhaps that possibility will be taken up in future visits to what is already being mapped out as a full-blown Mattel cinematic universe. For now, this early adventure generates more than enough goodwill to sustain your curiosity and suspend, or at least temporarily overwhelm, your reservations. Drawing on the breathless narrative velocity and sly comic mischief she showed in her sparkling recent adaptation of “Little Women,” Gerwig maintains a delirious but remarkably coherent onslaught of gags, twists, ideas, non sequiturs (Michael Cera! Matchbox 20!) and scholarly bits of Barbie arcana — all of it swirling like a merry comic tornado around the serene center of gravity that is Robbie’s captivatingly sincere performance.

Like Amy Adams as a fish-out-of-water Disney princess in “Enchanted,” Robbie takes an archetype long dismissed as an airheaded caricature and, moment by deeply felt moment, teases and fleshes her out. With her radiant smiles and goofy-graceful physicality, she inhabits Barbie’s glamour and entitlement as effortlessly as she inhabits her hot-pink bell bottoms. But she also gradually punctures those upbeat vibes with tremulous notes of vulnerability and premonitions of disaster, right around the time her Barbie notices a patch of cellulite and begins having incongruous thoughts of death.

These intimations of mortality, which I wouldn’t have minded hearing about in even gnarlier detail, suggest cracks in Barbie’s psyche, but also in Barbie Land’s very foundations. To explain further would risk giving away the strange metaphysical rules that govern Barbie Land, its fantastic-plastic inhabitants and their tricky relationship to the real world. And that real world is ultimately Barbie’s destination, a place she sets out for in search of answers, not realizing that her own attention-starved Ken has stowed away in her little pink Corvette.

Ah yes, Ken. There are several Kens in this movie, all of them amiable second-class citizen hunks of Barbie Land, played by actors including Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans and Ncuti Gatwa. But Gosling, as the neediest, most pathetically insecure Ken of the lot, rises to delicious new levels of actorly self-mockery. Sporting a platinum dye job that never fails to match his denim cutoffs, ’90s neon workout gear, pastel-striped beachwear and luxurious mink coat (sold separately), Gosling scores the expected laughs about Ken’s fashionista vanity , ambiguous sexuality and all-around preening petulance. But what makes him more than just another smooth-chested punchline is one of Gerwig’s deftest satirical touches: As it turns out, it doesn’t take long for a dude with serious self-esteem issues to open a Pandora’s box of patriarchal oppression.

Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig on how Ken became the subversive center of ‘Barbie’

Star Ryan Gosling and director Greta Gerwig open up about Ken’s journey to toxic masculinity and back in their comedy based on the iconic Mattel toys.

July 11, 2023

For toxic masculinity, though unheard of in Barbie Land, is of course alive and well in the real world, as Barbie and Ken are initially shocked to learn when they arrive on the sunny streets of Los Angeles. Here, women aren’t respected, let alone placed on polymer pedestals; they’re ogled, objectified, sidelined and worse. And to hear it from an angry teenager named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), Barbie herself deserves her share of the blame, being a tool of “sexualized capitalism” that “set the feminist movement back years.”

That’s the case for the Barbie prosecution, in a nutshell, and as you might expect, it isn’t allowed to go unchallenged. Sasha’s attack is the first of the script’s two big throw-down scenes; the second is a rousing feminist cri de coeur delivered by Sasha’s mom, Gloria (a winning America Ferrera), who’s on hand to temper her daughter’s scorn, emphasize Barbie’s enduring multigenerational appeal and remind us that, yes, you can love women and love Barbie too. It’s a hugely effective monologue, calculated for maximum applause and likely to get it. But “Barbie’s” feminism, something it wears proudly on its sequined sleeve, seldom needs such emphatic dramatic underlining to register.

The movie is at its best when it’s simply leaning into its own fast, funny, free-floating goofiness, whether it’s letting Kate McKinnon do her thing as a self-explanatory Weird Barbie, pitting multiple dancing Kens against each other in a hypnotic dream ballet, or throwing in a coconutty reference to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” I could’ve done without the filler-ish comic subplot featuring Will Ferrell as Mattel’s CEO, a mostly toothless bit of corporate ribbing that nonetheless does lead to a visually striking chase sequence through a maze of office cubicles, cleverly staged as a riff on Jacques Tati’s classic “Playtime.”

Gerwig’s wide-ranging movie love serves her well here; there’s something fitting and finally moving about the way Barbie’s journey of self-discovery takes her through a glittery funhouse of cinematic allusions. If Barbie Land can’t help but evoke the creepily self-contained utopia of “The Truman Show,” Barbie’s entire quest unfolds like a kind of reverse “Wizard of Oz,” in which she ends up leaving a trippy Technicolor dreamscape and traveling to a humdrum, grayed-out reality rather than the other way around. You might sense echoes of those films during this movie’s strange, beguiling final moments, and perhaps a callback to “2001” too. The evolution of Barbie continues.

'Barbie'

Rating: PG-13, for suggestive references and brief language Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes Playing: Starts July 21 in general release

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More to Read

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the ... Read all Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans. Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.

• Greta Gerwig
• Noah Baumbach
• Margot Robbie
• Ryan Gosling
• 1.7K User reviews
• 455 Critic reviews
• 80 Metascore
• 203 wins & 423 nominations total

• Weird Barbie

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• Trivia Barbie is 23% larger than everything in Barbieland to mimic the awkward, disproportionate scale that real Barbies and Barbie activity sets are produced in. This is why Barbie sometimes appears too large for things like her car or why ceilings seem to be too low in the Dreamhouses.
• Goofs Gloria drives a Chevrolet Blazer SS EV, yet during the car chase scene her electric vehicle makes conventional gas engine acceleration noises.

Ken : To be honest, when I found out the patriarchy wasn't just about horses, I lost interest.

• Crazy credits All the actors playing Barbies and Kens are not indicative of which Barbie and Ken they portray, and are simply listed as playing "Barbie" and "Ken", with the exception. (Just for clarification's sake, Margot Robbie plays "Stereotypical Barbie", Kate McKinnon plays "Weird Barbie", Issa Rae plays "President Barbie", Hari Nef plays "Dr. Barbie", Alexandra Shipp plays "Writer Barbie", Emma Mackey plays "Physicist Barbie", Sharon Rooney plays "Lawyer Barbie", Ana Cruz Kayne plays "Judge Barbie", Dua Lipa plays all the "Mermaid Barbies", Nicola Coughlan plays "Diplomat Barbie", and Ritu Arya plays "Journalist Barbie".)
• Alternate versions The IMAX version, released on September 22, 2023, has an extended runtime of two hours.
• Connections Edited from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Soundtracks Requiem (1963/65): 2. Kyrie Written by György Ligeti Performed by Bavarian Radio Orchestra (as Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks) and Francis Travis Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH Under licence from Universal Music Operations Ltd

User reviews 1.7K

• HabibieHakim123
• Jul 18, 2023

Incredible Looks From the 'Barbie' Press Tour

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• July 21, 2023 (United States)
• United States
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• Official Instagram
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• Venice Beach, Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Warner Bros.
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• LuckyChap Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $100,000,000 (estimated)
• $636,238,421
• $162,022,044
• Jul 23, 2023
• $1,445,638,421

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 54 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track
• 12-Track Digital Sound
• D-Cinema 96kHz 7.1
• Dolby Atmos

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Watch Barbie with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Barbie is a visually dazzling comedy whose meta humor is smartly complemented by subversive storytelling.

Clever, funny, and poignant, Barbie is an entertaining movie with a great overall message.

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The Barbie movie finds all the fun in laughing at the men’s rights movement

It’s a takedown of toxic masculinity tied up with a pretty pink wrapper

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I grew up in a Barbie household, as well as a deeply feminist household. Along with My Little Pony, Cherry Merry Muffin , and (prized above all) my extensive collection of She-Ra action figures, my mother gave me and my sister Barbie dolls for “imaginative play,” something Mom encouraged just as much as she encouraged us to play video games — for hand-eye coordination and for our potential careers in STEM, naturally.

Our TV habits were mediated with feminism in mind, too; I watched and rewatched She-Ra: Princess of Power on VHS, but I barely knew He-Man, whom I considered as irrelevant as Ken. As I grew older and met other kids, though, I realized I had been living in Opposite Land. Everybody else knew He-Man better than She-Ra. The female-dominated world of Barbie, She-Ra, My Little Pony, and so on was a farce. The real world was made for Ken.

Heading into the press screening for Barbie , I regressed back into the beautiful, childlike misconceptions of my toy collection. I spent my drive to the movie thinking back on my love of Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey and I, Tonya , as well as my admiration for Greta Gerwig’s body of work, from Frances Ha to Little Women . Even knowing this movie would have to wrestle with Mattel’s involvement and control over the massive Barbie brand, I knew director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach would find their own way to unpack and analyze modern standards of femininity and feminist thought. I figured it’d be a little funny, a little deep, maybe a little too basic, but hopefully smarter than The Lego Movie .

I did not expect Barbie to be a movie about Ken — and more importantly, a movie Ryan Gosling steals with such glorious aplomb that I can’t even be that mad at him for it.

[ Ed. note: Minor setup spoilers ahead for Barbie .]

Don’t get me wrong. Margot Robbie is no slouch as what the movie calls “Stereotypical Barbie” — the blond bombshell that kids in Mattel focus groups point to when presented with diverse Barbie dolls and asked, “Which one is Barbie?” Stereotypical Barbie starts the movie as a confident woman who knows exactly who she is, and doesn’t ever want anything to change. She lives in Barbieland, a fantasy realm conjured by Mattel that’s powered by the imaginations of kids who play with Barbie dolls. It’s a world ruled by Barbies, and unashamed of traditional feminine tropes. The president is a Barbie (played by Issa Rae, in a pink silk “President” sash). The Supreme Court is all Barbie. And every Nobel Prize winner in history is — you guessed it — a Barbie. Every pink-washed DreamHouse mansion in Barbieland is owned by a woman who makes her own money and spends her free time indulging in “girls’ nights” where everybody shares a glorious communal wardrobe.

Stereotypical Barbie has no reason to leave this beautiful feminine realm. She’s forced to trek into the harsh world of Reality only because somewhere, someone is playing with her while experiencing such intense existential angst that their emotions are reaching Barbieland and drilling into Barbie’s psyche. Her real-world owner is inadvertently causing her to think about death, get actual cellulite on her thighs, and even develop articulated ankles that experience all-too-real pain when she stuffs her feet into stiletto heels.

But even before the wall between Barbieland and Reality starts breaking down, it’s all too clear that this is Ken’s movie. At the film’s outset, Barbie has it all, and Robbie sells Barbieland’s bland, uncomplicated happiness with a frozen-but-satisfied smile. For Ken, though, it’s never been that simple. Barbie is happy by default, but Ken is only happy when Barbie acknowledges him. In a world where every night is girls’ night, Ken can never experience satisfaction.

Ken isn’t just frustrated about competing with all the many other Kens for Barbie’s affection — although that is an issue, with hot, comparatively youthful it boy Simu Liu playing a version of Ken who makes Gosling’s Ken sweat bullets. Ken lacks purpose in Barbieland, and he wants that to change. Without Barbie, he’s nothing — and most of the time, Ken is without Barbie. He’s an afterthought whose main role in life is holding her purse.

Barbie starts off slow, doing the work of establishing the cutesy realm of Barbieland so there’s a clear, dark contrast when the film eventually enters Reality. But even in this opening act, Gosling swipes each scene from the sidelines, his face wracked by the near-constant heartbreak of Barbie’s lack of interest in him. As a viewer, I was far more drawn to his arc, even as I worried, Is it a bad thing that Ken is the best thing about the Barbie movie?

But Barbie stays one step ahead of that thought, because it’s all leading up to an expert commentary on how little girls will always realize, sooner or later, that the real world is run by men, and that its Kens have more power than its Barbies. And once Gosling’s Ken makes it to Reality, he realizes this too, and he goes full men’s rights activist, transitioning from Barbie’s placeholder boyfriend into one of the most fascinating antagonists in modern pop cinema.

The film’s comedic yet incisive commentary on toxic masculinity is its strongest throughline, as it infects Gosling’s Ken, and eventually all of the rest of Barbieland’s Kens and Barbies. Whenever the movie is joking about the patriarchy and the very idea of the men’s rights movement, it sings. It also literally sings, with frequent in-jokey background songs, and a sequence where all the Kens bore their respective Barbie girlfriends to tears by whipping out acoustic guitars to sing at her rather than to her. We all know what we don’t want in a man. The far more difficult point to make, it turns out, is about Barbie herself, and what she represents. Who is Barbie in 2023?

Margot Robbie’s Barbie asks that question in a lot of different ways, but the answer becomes no clearer once she visits Reality. It’s useful to capitalize Reality when describing Barbie , because unlike Splash or Enchanted , this movie does not attempt to depict a recognizable version of our human world. Reality as depicted in Barbie is as much of a caricature as Barbieland, stuffed with recognizable tropes: sexist, catcalling construction workers; fist-pumping gym bros; and well-heeled white-collar executives who helpfully explain how the patriarchy works. That works perfectly to illustrate the extreme cartoonishness of men’s rights as interpreted by Ken, but it falls a bit short when it comes to illustrating the complexities of Barbie’s identity as a doll, a global brand, and a social phenomenon, much less a character attempting to understand contemporary American womanhood.

There’s a third rail that Gerwig and Baumbach scarcely dare to touch in Barbie : body image. Barbie designers at Mattel have struggled in this arena, too, as Barbie’s nonstandard but idealized body proportions have remained controversial, even as the company has introduced several variations in recent years . (They include a “curvy” Barbie, a “petite” Barbie , and a Barbie with articulated knees who can use a wheelchair.) Yes, Barbie can have every career imaginable — she can be president , even if real-life women can’t — but can she manage to rise above a size 6?

In the Barbie movie, she certainly can. Robbie definitely doesn’t have the proportions of the original “stereotypical Barbie,” although I’d say she’s close enough. (I don’t care to look up the numerical comparison, because it would only depress me.) But this movie’s full cast of Barbies would absolutely not be able to share their outfits, which the movie never explicitly addresses or resolves. Sharon Rooney of Hulu’s My Mad Fat Diary gets to be a Barbie without her size ever being mentioned. Hari Nef , the first transgender model to sign with IMG Models, is also a Barbie. Like all the other Barbies (and unlike so many trans people), she never has to worry about anybody questioning her genitalia, because nobody in Barbieland has any genitalia whatsoever.

Barbieland is a fantasy of perfect inclusion, yet it’s also a flattened one, because even in Reality, the issues facing non-Barbie-type women never fully surface. They get a quick, pointed acknowledgement from the mouth of Gloria (America Ferrera), a put-upon Reality mom who works for Mattel and still loves Barbie in spite of all the baggage that comes with her. At one point, Gloria runs down the ever-expanding list of double standards that modern American women face, such as the pressure to be “thin,” which women must claim is because they want to be “healthy” so they don’t look vain or shallow, even though they’ll really just be judged for not being thin. None of the non-thin Barbies react to this point, because they don’t quite work in a narrative that has to simplify all the social and gender issues it raises, at least if the credits are ever going to roll.

By the same token, the nonwhite Barbies and Kens argue about “the patriarchy” among themselves upon learning about it, but they don’t ever seem to learn about racial politics, even though Simu Liu’s Ken wouldn’t have existed 13 years ago. (The first-ever Asian Ken doll was, um, “ Samurai Ken ” in 2010.) And Kate McKinnon, playing a so-called Weird Barbie who experienced an extreme haircut and makeover at the hands of an experimental child, never actually answers the question anybody would have upon seeing her gay-ass haircut and knowing the actor’s sexuality. Yet even if no one says it, Weird Barbie is clearly Gay Barbie.

Skipping over all those conversations isn’t an oversight: It’s a series of intentional decisions designed to keep an already overstuffed, heady, and cerebral film moving along at a sprightly pace. I don’t need the Barbie movie, brought to me with Mattel’s approval, to offer incisive political commentary on every issue of the day. It’s more than enough that it unravels so many of America’s masculine anxieties of the moment, and that it does its job backward and in high heels.

Barbie the doll has to be everything for everyone, and she’s never succeeded. Barbie the movie has been asked to perform the same impossible trick — and just like I still feel a sentimental attachment to Barbie, I feel an overwhelming fondness and admiration for the movie’s daring attempt to make it work. I had forgotten that I had ever even experienced the dream world Barbieland offered me as a young girl. Barbie made me remember. That alone is enough to make the whole movie sparkle with surprising, refreshing fire.

Barbie opens in theaters on July 21.

Barbie World

• The untold history of Barbie Fashion Designer, the first mass-market ‘game for girls’
• ‘Cut and Style’ Barbie gave me the queerest moment of my childhood
• Meet the voice of all your favorite Barbie toys and games
• Barbie and drag queens share the same dreams
• Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp helped me navigate the dreaded ‘Pink Aisle’
• Cock Ring Ken is in the Barbie movie, so let’s talk about Cock Ring Ken
• Everything Ryan Gosling has said about playing — no, becoming — Ken for the Barbie movie
• Barbie’s mugshot is now a nerdy fan art meme
• The Barbie movie is teaching us about all her discontinued friends
• Barbie movie set used so much pink paint it caused a shortage
• There are more than 40 Barbie movies, and we ranked them all
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• The Barbie Crocs are my most coveted piece of movie merch
• Barbie’s iconic pink Corvette is coming to Forza
• Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj remade Aqua’s iconic Barbie anthem for the new movie

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Short takes

Not suitable under 11; parental guidance to 13 (themes, sexual references, language, violence)

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Barbie
• a review of Barbie completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 24 July 2023 .

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Every day in Barbieland is absolutely perfect. The strong female role models include a President Barbie, Nobel Prize winning Barbies, Doctor Barbies, Astronaut Barbies, and a population of highly intelligent, physically ‘perfect’ women who acknowledge the Kens in their lives but who do not need them. The Barbies believe they are responsible for all the power and opportunities women in the real world have been given and that, through their example, they have fixed all the problems in the real world, allowing women everywhere to lead richly fulfilling and empowering lives. When ‘Stereotypical’ Barbie (Margot Robbie) begins to have thoughts about death and dying, things begin to change. She wakes up one morning with bad breath, falls off her roof, and discovers she has flat feet and cellulite. Horrified by her predicament, she goes to see ‘Weird’ Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who explains that there has been a rip in the divide between Barbieland and the real world and that Stereotypical Barbie needs to go to find her human and help her solve the issues she is facing in order to fix the divide. Barbie sets off for L.A. and eventually permits an enamoured Ken (Ryan Gosling) to join her. Believing her human is a young teen named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), Barbie eagerly attempts to befriend the girl but is brutally rebuffed and subsequently picked up by operatives from Mattel who, both literally and figuratively, want to put Barbie back in her box. Meanwhile, Ken has discovered the power men in the real world possess and he heads back to Barbieland to share his newfound knowledge of patriarchal society with the rest of the Kens. Barbie manages to escape Mattel headquarters with help from Ruth (Rhea Perlman), the original creator of Barbie, and Gloria (America Ferrera), who not only happens to be Sasha’s mother but who is also Barbie’s human. Together, they travel back to Barbieland to heal the divide but by the time they arrive the Kens have taken over, reducing the mass of intelligent women to brainwashed shells of their former selves who are waiting on the men, at their beck and call, unwilling to make decisions and unable to remember who they really are. When all hope seems lost, it is Gloria who holds the key to helping the Barbies see through the hypocrisy and self-sacrifice, and it is Gloria who reminds them of who they truly are and that who they truly are will always be enough.

Themes info

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Gender inequality; Female empowerment; Patriarchal societies; Identity crisis; Sexualised capitalism; Rampant consumerism; Stereotypical assumptions and attempting to achieve impossible physical ideals.

Use of violence info

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

• A little girl smashes baby dolls into pieces, crushing their porcelain heads, throwing the dolls and breaking other things in the process.
• Barbie falls off her roof.
• Barbie accidentally rolls her car when she is surprised by Ken.
• A character from the real world slaps Barbie on the bottom and she punches him in the face.
• Men at Mattel chase and attempt to restrain Barbie.
• Gloria rolls Barbie’s car as she and Sasha are attempting to leave Barbieland.
• A character fights construction workers, hitting them, head-butting them, and strangling one with a shovel.
• The Kens turn on each other, hitting, throwing things and nipple twisting. They fight each other with lacrosse sticks, they shoot arrows, body slam, throw balls, and one Ken wrestles another into a choke hold.
• Ken slaps himself.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under five info.

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• Weird Barbie initially looks crazy and dishevelled. Barbie is terrified of meeting her and approaches her house with much fear and caution. The scene is not scary as such, but the apprehension is palpable and some viewers may be disturbed by the rapid montage of how Weird Barbie came to look that way: her hair was hacked off and burned, markers were drawn all over her face and she was forced into the splits and chucked into a box with other, similarly discarded, Barbies. The human version appears insane and could be slightly frightening to some small children, but Weird Barbie, despite her looks, turns out to be pretty awesome in the end.

Aged five to eight info

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

• Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• A wide variety of Mattel Barbie products are repeatedly mentioned and either displayed or used.
• Instagram is mentioned on occasion.
• Snippets of The Godfather movie are shown as is a scene from The BBC’s Pride and Prejudice .

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Ken asks to stay over at Barbie’s dream house one night. She asks him what they will do but Ken isn’t sure. He only knows that he loves Barbie.
• A character comments that she would like to see the, “nude blob Ken is packing under his jeans”.
• A character says: “I want some of this hot body”.
• Barbie tells some guys in the real world that she doesn’t have a vagina and that Ken doesn’t have a penis. Ken indicates to the men that he does have a penis.
• Barbie notes there is a threatening undertone to the sexual manner that men in the real world perceive her.
• A police officer comments that he likes Barbie better with more clothes on as it leaves something to the imagination.
• There is a character called 'Sugar Daddy Ken', who somewhat resembles a pimp.
• A character called 'Growing-up Barbie' is introduced and it is demonstrated how her breasts grow significantly larger when you raise her arm.
• Barbie makes an appointment to visit a gynaecologist in the real world.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Stereotypical Barbie shows Weird Barbie her thighs and a section of cellulite.
• A character grabs a crotch.
• Ken often wears outfits that expose his torso, and he is occasionally seen with a bare chest.
• Many of the Barbie characters wear tight, skimpy outfits from time to time.
• Two Kens kiss.
• Ken tries to kiss Stereotypical Barbie.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Once they have been brainwashed into servitude, numerous Barbies give their Kens Beers (or Brewskis) as they wait on them hand and foot.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Professional Bimbo
• One beeped-out use of “Mother F**ker”, though it is still clear what was said.

In a nutshell

Barbie is a well-cast, comical, fantasy-adventure, aimed at young girls and tweens, but also targets and draws in the nostalgia of adults who have played with Barbies in their youth. While there are some important messages about female empowerment and some spot-on references to the impossible standards women are held to in every aspect of life, the deeper implications are often glossed over and there are some dangerous messages that some children may focus on instead, including: not being pretty enough or perfect enough, or relating your value and worth to someone else’s opinion of you.

The main messages from this movie are that everyone is unique and that no one looks like Barbie, except Barbie; that you are not your outward appearance, you are so much more; and that it is your thoughts, ideals and values that will add the most meaning to your life and help define who you truly are.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• Trying to look like someone else or holding yourself to impossible standards of ‘beauty’.
• Dumbing yourself down and not allowing your light to shine because someone else may be intimidated or resentful of your insights.
• Putting women into boxes and restraining their potential.
• The way that marketing and advertising affect consumerism and the consequences thereof.

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The First Reviews For ‘Barbie’ Are Here, And Apparently Ryan Gosling Steals The Show

After months of build-up and a worldwide press tour , Barbie has finally made it to the big screen.

The film, which is directed by Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, premiered in Los Angeles to a select audience. Some of the lucky few, which included the Barbie cast , A-list celebrities, influencers and media, have begun sharing their thoughts on the highly-anticipated film.

With so much anticipation, it’s safe to say that we have some pretty high expectations for Barbie —but does the movie meet them? Let’s see what the first reviewers have say.

Screenrant writer Joseph Deckelmeier was quick to share his thoughts on social media, and they were overwhelmingly good.

“Barbie caught me off guard and I mean that in the best way possible,” Deckelmeier wrote on Twitter. “It’s funny, bombastic, and very smart. Greta Gerwig aims for the fences and hits a home-run. Margot Robbie’s performance is great and @RyanGosling and @SimuLiu are pure entertainment! The whole cast is brilliant!”

#Barbie caught me off guard & I mean that in the best way possible. It’s funny, bombastic, & very smart. Greta Gerwig aims for the fences & hits a home-run. Margot Robbie’s performance is great & @RyanGosling & @SimuLiu are pure entertainment! The whole cast is brilliant! pic.twitter.com/oXH965aUIF — Joseph Deckelmeier (@joedeckelmeier) July 10, 2023

Variety’s Katcy Stephan also took to Twitter, where she described the film as “perfection.”

“Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play,” Stephan wrote.

#Barbie is perfection. Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play. 🎀 — Katcy Stephan (@katcystephan) July 10, 2023

Many reviewers had particular praise for Ryan Gosling’s performance as Ken, including ComicBook.com writer Jamie Jirak, who wrote “Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination, I’m dead serious!”

I can't officially quit Twitter before telling you all that #Barbie  is currently my favorite film of the year. Greta Gerwig somehow exceeded my expectations. She tackles the positives and negatives of Barbie so beautifully. Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination, I'm dead serious! — Jamie Jirak #YordHorde (@JamieCinematics) July 10, 2023

Similarly, Pay Or Wait host Sharronda Williams described Ryan Gosling as a “scene stealer delivering most of the laughs.”

However, Williams did note that while she enjoyed most of the film, “the screenplay feels bloated at times.”

#BarbieTheMovie is witty, heartfelt, and downright fun at times. Ryan Gosling is a scene stealer delivering most of the laughs while Margot Robbie’s heartfelt performance will tug at your heartstrings. While I enjoyed most of the film the screenplay feels bloated at times pic.twitter.com/lepggZKZIX — Sharronda Williams (@payorwait) July 10, 2023

Other reviewers also weren’t entirely won over by the film, including Collider writer Perri Nemiroff who praised the film’s craftsmanship but had mixed feelings about the story.

“As for the story, that’s where I’m a bit more mixed. I think the film serves Margot Robbie’s Barbie and her journey especially well, but there are other characters experiencing important arcs that needed more screen time to really dig into and explore to the fullest,” Nemiroff wrote.

“Overall, #Barbie isn’t the home run I was hoping for, or that I think it needs to be given the topics it’s tackling, but it’s still a well made, bold film with a VERY strong voice and vision, one that often made me think, HOW does this movie exist? And that right there is almost always a quality in a film that will win me over.”

I have seen #Barbie ! The craftsmanship is incredible. In particular the costume & production design includes next-level work that heavily contributes to creating the feeling that these truly are Barbies, their dream houses, and their worlds come to life. As for the story, that’s… pic.twitter.com/97r3sSodcw — Perri Nemiroff (@PNemiroff) July 10, 2023

The Best Pieces Of Barbie Merch

Barbie Girls Night Terry Sweat in Grey, $35.00 at Myer .

OPI Barbie the Movie Limited Edition Nail Lacquer in Hi Barbie!, $22.95 at Adore Beauty

Mermade Hair Barbie Wave Kit, $129 at Adore Beauty .

When Is ‘Barbie’ Released In Australia?

Barbie comes to Australian cinemas on 20 July, 2023.

Teneal has a Bachelor Of Arts degree In English and Cultural Studies from The University Of Western Australia. After completing university, Teneal began a career in lifestyle journalism, writing about food, interiors and wellness for publications including Apartment Therapy, SBS Food and Fashion Journal. Now based in Sydney, Teneal is a lifestyle writer for marie claire and ELLE Australia.

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Barbie Review

21 Jul 2023

The soundscape that sweeps through the opening moments of Barbie –wind and something slightly magical, yet slightly sinister – transports you to a collective memory before you’ve seen even a hint of pink plastic. It’s instantly reminiscent of  The Wizard Of Oz , ahead of meeting another hero with magic shoes and her scarecrow with a six-pack. It promises nostalgia, grandeur, and a little darkness. The film delivers so much else.

Helen Mirren’s wry narration sets the scene with a satirical flourish. As an exquisitely detailed world of startling pink, purple and aquamarine unfurls, she explains that the residents of Barbieland have solved sexism. Barbie can be anything, and so of course women can also be anything. Then why, under a disco ball on another perfect night, is Barbie contemplating death? She must travel to the real world and find her human to find out, with Ryan Gosling’s clingy Ken along for the ride.

It’s a thrill to see Robbie and Gosling effortlessly riding the film’s comedy highs and existential lows

Here ends the fundamental plot of  Barbie . There are other elements that fall into the conventions of a studio summer film: a corporate bigwig (Will Ferrell) is trying to get Barbie back in her box; a tired mother (America Ferrera) is trying to reconnect with her surly teenage daughter (Ariana Greenblatt). Yet at every available opportunity Greta Gerwig and her co-writer Noah Baumbach grab their pastel crayons and scrawl them – all at once – over the lines.

Above all else, it’s painfully funny. Barbie’s journey of self-discovery is often derailed by surreal skits and arch asides. Robbie – who has been dialling it up to 11 since Harley Quinn – is hilarious, but the most consistent scene-stealer is Mr. Blond Fragility. Gosling submerges wholeheartedly into Ken’s insecure psyche as he moves from Barbie’s sidepiece to patriarchal poster boy. Every muscle flex, every hair flick, every guitar strum lands perfectly. There are moments where he will rob you of breath.

There are minor casualties as a result of  Barbie ’s many spinning plates. Blink and you’ll miss some of the vast and vibrant ensemble cast, and while the screenplay masterfully subverts recent Hollywood attempts at feminism – especially for a film that is at surface-level 99.9 per cent pink – at times it falls short, reminding us that yes, this is still a toy movie.

Yet where Gerwig can draw us away from the Mattel towards the meta, she does. Now firmly in her big studio-directing era, she has dreamt up a (literal) playground for her stars to run amok in, and it’s a thrill to see Robbie and Gosling effortlessly riding the film’s comedy highs and existential lows, which land with unfaltering, surprising sincerity. Like its glossy protagonist,  Barbie  is a film that refuses to be boxed, permanently moving the bar on what a popcorn movie can achieve. It may not be Oz, but we’re certainly not in Kansas anymore either.

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Clever, colorful comedy with sophisticated themes, script.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Promotes idea that feminism is inclusive of all wo

Barbie is curious, empathetic, brave, and kind, an

The main Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosl

A big fight among a lot of characters involves use

Ken asks Barbie to spend the night. When she asks

One bleeped "motherf--," plus a few uses of words

Barbie and Mattel brands are in nearly every scene

The Kens have a lot of "brewskis" (beers), as well

Parents need to know that writer-director Greta Gerwig's all-star take on Barbie has a sophisticated message about feminism and the patriarchy (and, consequently, a screenplay that will likely go over younger kids' heads). The movie follows "Stereotypical Barbie" (Margot Robbie) and her handsome but insecure …

Positive Messages

Promotes idea that feminism is inclusive of all women -- and that being a woman is complicated and sometimes messy. Barbieland is welcoming, if naive about the ways the real world works. Encourages women to support one another, to be free of the many standards thrust upon them by society. Emphasizes importance of finding out who you are separately from your relationships with other people.

Positive Role Models

Barbie is curious, empathetic, brave, and kind, and she doesn't give up on her goals. She realizes that she doesn't have to be "perfect" to have value. Ken is insecure and shallow but develops meaningfully over the course of the story. The Barbies have power (until they fall under the sway of the patriarchy), and they eventually learn how to coexist with the Kens. Gloria is an observant, loving mother, and her daughter, Sasha, is smart and bold.

Diverse Representations

The main Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are White and conventionally attractive -- to the point where traits like flat feet and cellulite are, albeit satirically, treated as disgusting. The rest of the Barbies and Kens in Barbieland are diverse and inclusive in many ways. There are Barbies and/or Kens who are of color, have a disability (one Barbie uses a wheelchair), and represent a range of body types, backgrounds, and professions. One Barbie is played by Hari Nef, who's trans, but her identity isn't referenced in the movie. Gloria is played by Honduran American actor America Ferrera, and her daughter, Sasha, is played by Ariana Greenblatt, who's Latina. The movie was directed and co-written by female filmmaker Greta Gerwig.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A big fight among a lot of characters involves use of silly weapons and physical grappling; another fight includes a chokehold. Barbie runs away from the Mattel executives who want to "box" her; they chase her in a scene with a lot of slapstick. There's a high-speed pursuit, but no one is injured. The Barbie cars spin out and flip over, but no one gets hurt. Ken has a fall and is taken to an ambulance/clinic for treatment. Barbie admits to having persistent thoughts about death.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Ken asks Barbie to spend the night. When she asks why, he says because they're boyfriend and girlfriend, but he doesn't know what that really entails. Barbie makes a comment about her and Ken not having genitals. A character wonders what kind of "nude blob" a Ken is "packing." Suggestive pickup lines and double entendres. After the Kens take over, several Barbies are shown flirting with and serving the Kens, often scantily clad. The primary Ken is frequently shirtless; some of the other Kens are too. Ken tries to kiss Barbie a couple of times, but she tells him no or dodges it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

One bleeped "motherf--," plus a few uses of words including "damn," "hell," "crap," "bimbo," "tramp," "stupid," "penis," "vagina," "crazy," "nut job," "jeez," "oh my God," "for Christ's sake," "freaking," "frigging," "shut up," "up the wazoo," the suggestive euphemism "beach you off," and catcalls and double entendres.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Barbie and Mattel brands are in nearly every scene of the movie, including references to real Barbie dolls and accessories. Other featured brands include Duolingo, Hydro Flask, Hummer, Suburban, Chevy, Birkenstock, and Chanel. Clips from movies like The Godfather and Pride & Prejudice are seen.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The Kens have a lot of "brewskis" (beers), as well as red cups, and a party scene shows the primary Ken holding what looks like a wine glass. He also mentions being "day drunk" at one point.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that writer-director Greta Gerwig 's all-star take on Barbie has a sophisticated message about feminism and the patriarchy (and, consequently, a screenplay that will likely go over younger kids' heads). The movie follows "Stereotypical Barbie" ( Margot Robbie ) and her handsome but insecure (boy)friend, Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), as they venture into the human world and discover the shocking-to-them truth that Barbie dolls didn't actually solve the problems of sexism and patriarchal control. While there's no sex in the movie (the Barbies and Kens are frank about not having genitals), Kens are shown shirtless, Barbies get catcalled, and there are suggestive references to the dolls' bodies -- including Ken's "nude bulge" -- and how a male-dominated society expects women to be ornamental and helpful. There's a bleeped use of "motherf--" (plus "crap," "shut up," "oh my God," etc.), a couple of big brawls with silly weapons, slapstick chases, beer drinking, and near-constant mentions of Barbie-maker Mattel. Characters demonstrate empathy and perseverance, and Barbieland is populated by a diverse group of Barbies and Kens from a range of body sizes, abilities, genders, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. The supporting cast includes Simu Liu , Issa Rae , America Ferrera , Will Ferrell , Emma Mackey , and Michael Cera . To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (197)
• Kids say (216)

Based on 197 parent reviews

DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE

Ruined by political messaging and cheap potshots, what's the story.

BARBIE opens with a Helen Mirren -narrated 2001: A Space Odyssey homage that explains how the advent of the Barbie doll changed girls' playtime forever, allowing them to imagine unlimited futures and roles beyond motherhood. Then viewers are taken to a parallel universe called Barbieland, where myriad Barbies live in harmony with a bunch of Kens and their pals Midge and Skipper. Since Barbies rule this idealistic, inclusive land -- serving as everything from president ( Issa Rae ) and Supreme Court justices to Nobel laureates, surgeons, etc. -- they believe that the real world is similarly woman- and girl-friendly. None is more sure of that than "Stereotypical Barbie" ( Margot Robbie ), who's always perfect from head to toe, hosting nightly parties and sleepovers and occasionally paying attention to Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), who does little more than stand around at the beach with the other Kens and yearn after her. But when Barbie starts to have thoughts about death, she loses her permanent foot arch and sprouts a spot of cellulite, forcing her to visit the wise but isolated "Weird Barbie" ( Kate McKinnon ). Weird Barbie explains that Stereotypical Barbie will continue to deteriorate if she doesn't cross over into the human world, find the girl who's playing with her, and cheer her up. So Barbie and stowaway Ken set off on a quest to Los Angeles. As Barbie tries to find her human, she realizes that the human world isn't at all what she expected. Meanwhile, Ken is in awe of how much more powerful men are in the real world than they are in Barbieland.

Is It Any Good?

Greta Gerwig 's delightful comedy adventure is bolstered by Robbie and Gosling's impeccable performances, a top-notch ensemble cast, and a witty screenplay. The two stars are perfectly cast in the iconic lead roles, humanizing the doll characters and nailing both the emotional beats and the comedic aspects of Barbie's and Ken's development. The sprawling supporting cast is also well selected, with memorable performances from Rae as the Barbie president, America Ferrera as truth-telling human mom Gloria, Simu Liu as Gosling's rival Ken, and Will Ferrell as the smarmy CEO of Mattel. Three young actors from Sex Education -- Emma Mackey , Ncuti Gatwa , and Connor Swindells -- make notable appearances in supporting roles, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker/screenwriter Emerald Fennell turns up as Barbie's discontinued pregnant friend, Midge. Overall, Barbieland is a pleasingly inclusive place, where the Barbies and Kens can be more than thin, White, and blond as they sing and dance in their carefully curated outfits.

This movie isn't like the many animated Barbie movies , and its sophisticated themes may land better with teens and adults than tweens and kids. But the contrast between the movie's serious societal commentary and the trippy, nostalgic comedy manages not to feel off-putting or off-balance. Ken's explanations about the benefits of the patriarchy (horses, hats, all the top jobs!) are laugh-out-loud funny, while Gloria's passionate speech about the ways women must and mustn't act in human society rings soberingly true. For all of the jokes, there's a ton of heart in the screenplay, with Robbie and Gosling both getting many scene-stealing, moving monologues. Their memorable portrayals carry the movie, but the behind-the-scenes technicians deserve awards, too, including production designer Sarah Greenwood for the film's pink-infused Barbie-core set pieces, music supervisor George Drakoulias for the Mark Ronson-produced soundtrack, Oscar-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran for the hundreds of authentic Barbie and Ken costumes, and director of photography Rodrigo Prieto for the fizzy cinematography. An ideal mother-daughter pick and a collaborative achievement worthy of the hype, this Barbie is a keeper.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Barbie 's message: that society has sexist, contradictory, unattainable expectations for women. Do you agree? What are your thoughts about what it means to be a girl and a woman?

Discuss the way that patriarchy and feminism are explored or explained in the movie. Does Barbieland treat Kens the way women are treated in the human world? Why is Ken so delighted to return to Barbieland?

Although the movie is about a children's doll, it's not really aimed at young kids, with its mature themes and humor. Do you think a movie inspired by and about toys needs to be appropriate for little kids?

Talk about the relationship between human mom Gloria and her middle school-age daughter, Sasha. What changes about their connection once they meet Barbie?

Did you notice positive diverse representation in the movie? Why is that important?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 21, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : October 17, 2023
• Cast : Margot Robbie , Ryan Gosling , America Ferrera , Will Ferrell
• Director : Greta Gerwig
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Latino actors, Female writers
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Princesses, Fairies, Mermaids, and More , Friendship , Great Girl Role Models
• Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance
• Run time : 114 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : suggestive references and brief language
• Awards : Common Sense Selection , Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner , Kids' Choice Award
• Last updated : July 15, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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• Entertainment
• <i>Barbie</i> Is Very Pretty But Not Very Deep

Barbie Is Very Pretty But Not Very Deep

T he fallacy of Barbie the doll is that she’s supposed to be both the woman you want to be and your friend, a molded chunk of plastic—in a brocade evening dress, or a doctor’s outfit, or even Jane Goodall’s hyper-practical safari suit—which is also supposed to inspire affection. But when you’re a child, your future self is not a friend—she’s too amorphous for that, and a little too scary. And you may have affection, or any number of conflicted feelings, for your Barbie, but the truth is that she’s always living in the moment, her moment, while you’re trying to dream your own future into being. Her zig-zagging signals aren’t a problem—they’re the whole point. She’s always a little ahead of you, which is why some love her, others hate her, and many, many fall somewhere in the vast and complex in-between.

With Barbie the movie —starring Margot Robbie, also a producer on the film—director Greta Gerwig strives to mine the complexity of Barbie the doll, while also keeping everything clever and fun, with a hot-pink exclamation point added where necessary. There are inside jokes, riffs on Gene Kelly-style choreography, and many, many one-line zingers or extended soliloquies about modern womanhood—observations about all that’s expected of us, how exhausting it all is, how impossible it is to ever measure up. Gerwig has done a great deal of advance press about the movie, assuring us that even though it’s about a plastic toy, it’s still stuffed with lots of ideas and thought and real feelings. (She and Noah Baumbach co-wrote the script.) For months now there has been loads of online chatter about how “subversive” the movie is—how it loves Barbie but also mocks her slightly, and how it makes fun of Mattel executives even though their real-life counterparts are both bankrolling the whole enterprise and hoping to make a huge profit off it. The narrative is that Gerwig has somehow pulled off a coup, by taking Mattel’s money but using it to create real art , or at least just very smart entertainment.

Read More: Our Cover Story on Barbie

It’s true that Barbie does many of the things we’ve been promised: there is much mocking and loving of Barbie, and plenty of skewering of the suits. But none of those things make it subversive. Instead, it’s a movie that’s enormously pleased with itself, one that has cut a big slice of perfectly molded plastic cake and eaten it—or pretend-eaten it—too. The things that are good about Barbie — Robbie’s buoyant, charming performance and Ryan Gosling’s go-for-broke turn as perennial boyfriend Ken, as well as the gorgeous, inventive production design—end up being steamrollered by all the things this movie is trying so hard to be. Its playfulness is the arch kind. Barbie never lets us forget how clever it’s being, every exhausting minute.

That’s a shame, because the first half-hour or so is dazzling and often genuinely funny, a vision that’s something close to (though not nearly as weird as) the committed act of imagination Robert Altman pulled off with his marvelous Popeye. First, there’s a prologue, narrated by Helen Mirren and riffing on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, explaining the impact of early Barbie on little girls in 1959; she was an exotic and aspirational replacement for their boring old baby dolls, whose job was to train them for motherhood—Gerwig shows these little girls on a rocky beach, dashing their baby dolls to bits after they’ve seen the curvy miracle that is Barbie. Then Gerwig, production designer Sarah Greenwood, and costume designer Jacqueline Durran launch us right into Barbieland, with Robbie’s approachably glam Barbie walking us through . This is an idyllic community where all the Dream Houses are open, not only because its denizens have no shame and nothing to hide, but because homes without walls mean they can greet one another each day with the sunrise. “Hello, Barbie!” they call out cheerfully. Everyone in Barbieland—except the ill-fated pregnant Midge , based on one of Mattel’s many discontinued experiments in toy marketing—is named Barbie, and everyone has a meaningful job. There are astronaut Barbies and airline pilot Barbies, as well as an all-Barbie Supreme Court. Garbage-collector Barbies, in matching pink jumpsuits, bustle cheerfully along this hamlet’s perpetually pristine curbs. This array of Barbies is played by a selection of actors including Hari Nef, Dua Lipa, Alexandra Shipp, and Emma Mackey. The president is also Barbie—she’s played by Issa Rae. (In one of the early section’s great sight gags, she brushes her long, silky tresses with an overscale oval brush.)

Barbieland is a world where all the Barbies love and support one another , like a playtime version of the old-fashioned women’s college, where the students thrive because there are no men to derail their self-esteem. Robbie’s Barbie—she is known, as a way of differentiating herself from the others, as Stereotypical Barbie, because she is white and has the perfectly sculpted proportions and sunny smile of the Barbie many of us grew up with—is the center of it all. She awakens each morning and throws off her sparkly pink coverlet, her hair a swirl of perfectly curled Saran. She chooses an outfit (with meticulously coordinated accessories) from her enviable wardrobe. Her breakfast is a molded waffle that pops from the toaster unbidden; when she “drinks” from a cup of milk, it’s only pretend-drinking, because where is that liquid going to go? This becomes a recurring gag in the movie, wearing itself out slowly, but it’s delightful at first, particularly because Robbie is so game for all of it. Her eyes sparkle in that vaguely crazed Barbie-like way; her smile has a painted-on quality, but there’s warmth there, too. She steps into this role as lightly as if it were a chevron-striped one piece tailored precisely to her talents.

Barbie also has a boyfriend, one Ken of many Kens. The Kens are played by actors including Kingsley Ben-Adir and Simu Liu. But Gosling’s Ken is the best of them, stalwart, in a somewhat neutered way, with his shaggy blond hair, spray-tan bare chest, and vaguely pink lips. The Kens have no real job, other than one known as “Beach,” which involves, as you might guess, going to the beach. The Kens are generally not wanted at the Barbies’ ubiquitous dance parties—the Barbies generally prefer the company of themselves. And that’s why the Kens’ existence revolves around the Barbies . As Mirren the narrator tells us, Barbie always has a great day. “But Ken has a great day only if Barbie looks at him.” And the moment Robbie does, Gosling’s face becomes the visual equivalent of a dream Christmas morning, alight with joy and wonder.

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You couldn’t, of course, have a whole movie set in this highly artificial world. You need to have a plot, and some tension. And it’s when Gerwig airlifts us out of Barbieland and plunks us down in the real world that the movie’s problems begin. Barbie awakens one morning realizing that suddenly, nothing is right. Her hair is messy on the pillow; her waffle is shriveled and burnt. She has begun to have unbidden thoughts about death. Worst of all, her perfectly arched feet have gone flat. (The other Barbies retch in horror at the sight.) For advice, she visits the local wise woman, also known as Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), the Barbie who’s been “played with too hard,” as evidenced by the telltale scribbles on her face. Weird Barbie tells Robbie’s confused and forlorn Barbie that her Barbieland troubles are connected to something that’s going on out there in the Real World, a point of stress that turns out to involve a Barbie-loving mom, Gloria (America Ferrera), and her preteen daughter, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who are growing apart. Barbie makes the journey to the Real World, reluctantly allowing Ken to accompany her. There, he’s wowed to learn that men make all the money and basically rule the land. While Barbie becomes more and more involved in the complexity of human problems , Ken educates himself on the wonders of the patriarchy and brings his newfound ideas back to empower the Kens, who threaten to take over the former utopia known as Barbieland.

By this point, Barbie has begun to do a lot more telling and a lot less showing; its themes are presented like flat-lays of Barbie outfits , delivered in lines of dialogue that are supposed to be profound but come off as lifeless. There are still some funny gags—a line about the Kens trying to win over the Barbies by playing their guitars “at” them made me snort. But the good jokes are drowned out by the many self-aware ones, like the way the Mattel executives, all men (the head boob is Will Ferrell), sit around a conference table and strategize ways to make more money off selling their idea of “female agency.”

The question we’re supposed to ask, as our jaws hang open, is “How did the Mattel pooh-bahs let these jokes through?” But those real-life execs, counting their doubloons in advance, know that showing what good sports they are will help rather than hinder them. They’re on team Barbie, after all! And they already have a long list of toy-and-movie tie-ins on the drawing board.

Meanwhile, we’re left with Barbie the movie, a mosaic of many shiny bits of cleverness with not that much to say. In the pre-release interviews they’ve given, Gerwig and Robbie have insisted their movie is smart about Barbie and what she means to women, even as Mattel executives have said they don’t see the film as being particularly feminist. And all parties have insisted that Barbie is for everyone.

Barbie probably is a feminist movie, but only in the most scattershot way. The plot hinges on Barbie leaving her fake world behind and, like Pinocchio and the Velveteen Rabbit before her, becoming “real.” Somehow this is an improvement on her old existence, but how can we be sure? The movie’s capstone is a montage of vintagey-looking home movies (Gerwig culled this footage from Barbie ’s cast and crew), a blur of joyful childhood moments and parents showing warmth and love. Is this the soon-to-be-real Barbie’s future, or are these the doll-Barbie’s memories? It’s impossible to tell. By this point, we’re supposed to be suitably immersed in the bath of warm, girls-can-do-anything fuzzies the movie is offering us. Those bold, bored little girls we saw at the very beginning of the film, dashing their baby dolls against the rocks, are nowhere in sight. In this Barbieland, their unruly desires are now just an inconvenience.

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1992 Flying High - Woosha's story

Barbie movie review: hardly revelatory pink-hued cash-grab forgets to be funny.

Dial down the Ryan Gosling Oscar buzz, because the only thing less likely than him winning one for playing Ken in the Barbie movie is anyone under 12 understanding the point of the film.

Margot Robbie gives arguably the best performance of her career in the titular role, but don’t be fooled by the phenomenally successful marketing campaign, which pitched director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie as a fun-filled, pink-hued romp.

The reality is this is a humourless and crushingly earnest movie, which mostly seems to be about justifying Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s involvement in such a credibility-deficient project.

Accordingly, when it comes to Barbie, the indie filmmaking darlings behind such excellent and nuanced movies as Marriage Story (Baumbach) and Lady Bird (Gerwig) try to have their intellectual cake and eat it too.

They bludgeon us with monologues about “cognitive dissonance” relating to women existing in a patriarchal system, while conveniently ignoring the fact this film only exists to make money for the company behind a toy that has perpetuated unhealthy female body types for the majority of its 64-year history.

Yeah, there are a few jokes aimed at toy manufacturer Mattel to give the illusion of independence, but the company is the one laughing – all the way to the bank – because those third-party licensing deals to put Barbie logos on EVERYTHING were signed long before the film’s release.

After an opener that only semi-successfully pays homage to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film introduces us to Barbieland, a utopian matriarchal society, in which the central character is “stereotypical” Barbie (Robbie).

When her idyllic existence starts to unravel, she learns that a portal has opened with the real world, and she must set out on a quest to uncover answers.

Which is how she ends up in real-world Los Angeles, with old mate Ken (Gosling) in tow.

Once there, she quickly realises things are very different from Barbieland, and not in a good way, while Ken becomes obsessed with what is a foreign concept to him – the patriarchy.

With Barbie waylaid in LA, and requiring the assistance of a rogue Mattel employee (America Ferrera), Ken decides to stage a Barbieland coup, utilising his newfound knowledge of patriarchal systems of oppression (as well as beer fridges, stallion imagery and the music of Matchbox Twenty).

There are some great ideas here, no doubt, but the execution misses the mark, with Gosling coming off as a less-funny Derek Zoolander, and the film exhibiting the worst whimsical excesses of Wes Anderson.

The key takeaways — the patriarchy is oppressive and #MenAreTrash — might be legit but are hardly revelatory, and somewhat diminished by how easily Barbieland’s empowered female-forward society is hijacked by Ken, an idiot.

The film tries so hard to claw its way to a position of moral and intellectual superiority that it often forgets to be entertaining, and one should be wary of anyone who claims it is a feminist masterpiece.

Like Gerwig and Baumbach, such people are probably trying to justify giving time and money to the Barbie industrial complex.

Gerwig’s Little Women is a feminist masterpiece, and Baumbach’s Frances Ha isn’t half bad in that regard either, but a film that offers a supercilious statement on equality while satirising depression, and gives a Barbie with disability a token appearance, ain’t it.

Rating: 2.5 stars

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Barbie is nearly in the top 10 highest-grossing films in U.S. after surpassing "The Avengers" at no. 11

By Caitlin O'Kane

September 18, 2023 / 12:42 PM EDT / CBS News

"Barbie" made another $4 million at the box office this weekend – nearly two months after it premiered – putting its domestic gross at more than $626 million. The film pushed out "The Avengers" as the 11th highest-grossing film domestically and is nearly in the top 10 highest-grossing films in the U.S. of all time, according to Box Office Mojo.

"Barbie" beat "The Avengers" by $2,764,233, pushing it down into the No. 12 spot on the domestic box office list. The Greta Gerwig film needs to make $27.28 million to dethrone 2015's "Jurassic World" in the No. 10 spot.

The highest-grossing film domestically is 2015's "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens," which has raked in more than $936 million in the U.S.

When factoring in worldwide sales, 2009's "Avatar" – which is No. 4 on the domestic list – is No. 1, with $2.9 billion in worldwide lifetime gross. "Barbie" is No. 14 on the worldwide list, having made $1.4 billion so far, according to Box Office Mojo, which tracks the domestic and worldwide gross of movies.

Considering most of the highest-grossing films both domestically and worldwide are superhero or fantasy movies – with a few exceptions, such as "Titanic" and "Top Gun" – "Barbie" stands out as a pink-drenched comedy with a heartwarming message about women empowerment.

All of the top 20 films on the highest-grossing list domestically are directed by men – except "Barbie," making it the highest-grossing film directed by a woman ever.

"Frozen II" – No. 22 on the list with a $477 million domestic gross – is the second-highest-grossing film directed by a woman, according to Box Office Mojo. Jennifer Lee co-directed both of the "Frozen" films, alongside Chris Buck. 

After it premiered on July 21, "Barbie" held the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office for four weeks. It has remained on the charts since, first slipping out of the No. 2 spot the weekend of Sept. 8, when several new movies, including "The Nun II" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3," premiered.

As it moved up the box office charts, "Barbie" first made history by becoming Warner Bros. Discovery's highest-grossing film, surpassing the domestic gross of 2008's "The Dark Knight" in August.

There are several Barbie characters in the film, but Margot Robbie plays the "stereotypical Barbie" who is blonde, ambitious and wears a lot of pink. Ryan Gosling plays one of the many Ken dolls in the film and America Ferrera plays the Mattel employee Barbie meets in the real world when she leaves "Barbieland." 

The star-studded film also includes Kate McKinnon , Issa Rae and Simu Liu as other Barbie and Ken dolls and Will Ferrell as the head of Mattel. 

The movie sparked an increase in so-called "Barbie core" – essentially an explosion of pink clothing and accessories. The mainly pink movie set encouraged moviegoers to wear their best pink Barbie-themed outfits to the movie theater – and also  caused a shortage of pink paint from the brand Rosco.

"Barbie: The Album," which includes songs from the soundtrack and is produced by Mark Ronson, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart. It has been on the chart for seven weeks and is currently in the No. 7 spot.

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

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