BARBIE: THE MOTION PICTURE
I went last night to see Barbie with my girlfriend. I left the theatre with an overall positive feeling on the movie, but a few niggling little things I wanted to talk about and the knowledge that there is very little opportunity where a nearly 30 year old man can talk at length about a Barbie movie. As such, I will be whinging into this void.
I. I AM KENOUGH
The movie is immaculately cast. Margot Robbie kills it in the titular role, and Ryan 'The Goose' Gosling likewise steals the spotlight so hard he should be up on charges. All the other Barbies and Kens are a joy to watch, effortlessly inhabiting the pastel shaded technicolour Barbieland and filling it with campy life. The sets are spectacular, perfectly realizing Barbieland as a full-size set of dreamhouse toy sets and doll asscessories. The transition to 'real world' California is hilariously executed and locations like the cartoonish Mattel headquarters do wonders to keep the viewer in a hightened sense of reality throughout. The movie had me continuously laughing throughout, to the point where I started stifling myself as I felt my guffaws might be distracting other viewers. The comedy, I'm saying, was very well done.
To expound upon the notion that Gosling's Ken steals the spotlight, It is established in the first act that Ken exists purely to attempt and garner Barbie's attention, vying for it with the other Kens (particularly one played by Simu Liu), to the polite acknowledgement and general disinterest of Robbie's Barbie. When Barbie rebukes Ken's request to stay the night at the Dreamhouse, going inside to hang out with her friends, Ken stares after her longingly, whispering to himself "I love you too". A clever spin on the secondary nature of Ken as an accessory doll to Barbie that most girl's (in my experience growing up having had a sister etc etc) don't really care about, presenting an undercurrent of unrequired affection and heartbreak. This is the seminal moment for Ken moving forward. When Barbie awakes to discover her natural tip-toe standing feet have gone flat, she is directed to the real world to set things right, Gosling's Ken tags along, lovesick and desperate to spent time with her.
Barbie finds the real world distressingly bleak, which serves to exasperate her growing existential crisis. The only highlight being an interaction she has with a grand-matronly looking woman, remarking how 'beautiful' the stranger is. She seeks out who she believes to be the owner of her real world doll counterpart, a pre-teen named Sasha. Approaching Sasha, bubbly and optimistic, hoping to lift the girl's spirit, Barbie is assaulted with typical eighth grade angst, getting read down to the lowest. Barbie runs off crying, and sits on a bus bench reflecting on the cruelty of being called a fasciast. While in Barbieland, Robbie displays fantastic comedic chops, and these depressing real world run ins allow her remit to give Barbie depth.
While Barbie is attempting to make right with Sasha, Ken finds that people generally acknowledge him, engaging in niceities, and that in the real world, there are dudes doing stuff- complete opposite to Barbieland. He enters Sasha's school's library, grabs some books about 'patriarchy' and ends up returning to Barbieland, while Barbie herself gets wrapped up in a situation at the Mattel headquarters.
Come to discover, Sasha was not the one playing with Barbie, it was her mother, Gloria. The revelation of such was masterfully done and a genuinely heart wrenching moment in my opinion. After giving Mattel the slip, Barbie takes Sasha and Gloria back to Barbieland with the intention of showing them both her utopian life. Upon arriving back, Barbie discovers to her shock and horror that Barbieland is now 'Kendom', Gosling's Ken having lead a revolution with the other Kens to take over Barbieland, their heads filled with notions of masculine superiority from Ken's time in the real world. Barbie and her human compatriates must unite the Barbies again to take back their home and remind Ken whose doll line this is supposed to be anyway!
This entire journey serves as a character arc for Ken. He is head over heels in love with Barbie, but she doesn't care. He overcompensates for this by first showering her in endless affection, and when that doesn't work, he overcompensates in the other direction by establishing the Kendom of surface level exaggerated masculinity. When the Barbies do manage to rise up by pitting the Kens against one another and retake Barbieland, he breaks down in tears at Barbie's feet, once again begging for her affection. She lets him down once more, and talks him into the revelation that he is a person of his own and doesn't need Barbie's love to have worth. It's a nice message at the end and despite Ken acting as the antagonist for the better part of the movie, I never perceieved him to be a villain per say because the entire thing was hilarious, and his motivation is clear from start to the very end.
II. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT DEATH?
Now having presented the plot from Ken's perspective, let's bring it back to our protagonist. This is where I begin to have some issues with the story. First, just to reitterate, Margot Robbie is fantastic. I have not one complaint about her portrayal of Barbie, I believe she was perfectly cast and delivers a spectacular performance. The thing is, despite the inciting incident of the movie being her feet going flat, her being the reason she and Ken visit reality, her having to find purpose and set things right- she doesn't get what I would consider to be a satisfying resolution to her conflict. At the onset of our story, Barbie begins getting intrusive thoughts about dying, which leads her to an existential crisis about her nature as a person, which is made worse by her time in reality. Seeking to win over Sasha only breaks her spirit more, and while finding Gloria to be the one she was actually looking for, Gloria's impassioned speech about how hard it is to be a woman in modern society doesn't really help Barbie settle her mind. Instead, Barbie meets her creator (more on this in a moment), ascends to a limbo state, and is made human for the film's resolution.
Perhaps I'm in the minority here but I did not see how this was supposed to provide closure? Rather than accept that she could still be Barbie despite self doubt and worry, Barbie must forever after leave her Barbieland utopia and join the real world which was, to her experience hithertonow, awful in every respect. During the aftermath of the final showdown between Barbie and Ken, Gloria tells the CEO of Mattel they should sell a 'Normal Barbie', who wears sweatpants and eats Starburst candies until their jaw hurts. The CEO, upon being informed by a lackee that such a product would sell, concurs! Why then can Robbie's Barbie not be that Normal Barbie? Ken got to learn his lesson and grow as a person. Barbie gets to be sad and then visit a gynecologist.
The introduction of Ruth Handler as a character is done first in the Mattel headquarters. Barbie, fleeing from the corporate board members, finds herself in a homely kitchen where an elderly woman offers her a cup of tea. They sit in silence, exchanging few words, before Barbie is off again seeking her escape. The scene, in my opinion, suffers from poor pacing. A couple of extended shots where they sit looking at one another, could have very easily have been trimmed a few seconds and been flawless. I liked this interaction as a subtle way to pay respect to the origins of the doll line. However, Ruth returns in the aforementioned Ken aftermath as a God like individual who then grants Barbie humanity. The issue I have with this resolution is twofold. Firstly, Ruth very bluntly states who she is, her position as Barbie's creator, and that Barbie is named after her daughter. I understand that a young viewer would probably need explanation of who Ruth Handler was, but it felt very ham fisted. Secondly, it is never established throughout the movie that Barbie wishes to become human, only that she wants to return to her life in Barbieland after rectifying her flat feet and calming her mind of existential dread. This could have worked if some foundation had been laid throughout her adventure, but it feels every bit the deus ex machina that it is presented as.
III. I CAN'T EVEN BEACH HERE
Clearly, this movie was not made for me, and that's a big part of why I'm not bothering to attempt commentary on the femenist messaging throughout the picture. I don't know how it's been received generally, I don't know what the grander implications are towards society or the Barbie brand for that matter. I can say, I found it ham fisted at times, but I also wasn't expecting anything less. I do find it kind of ironic that part of Ken's new post-reality personality is an infatuation with horses, which could have been written as a common interest for him to share with Barbie who, as long as I've ever been aware of Barbie, likes horses.
In conclusion: It's a gorgeously shot, well acted, very funny movie with a bit of a slapdash ending. Would recommend.
No comments:
Post a Comment