After months of the Barbie plot being kept under lock and key, the movie’s release means its director and stars can finally talk about what happens.
As anyone who has seen the film can attest, Barbie is as hilarious as promised and one of the best gags is saved for the very last line.
Director Greta Gerwig has now revealed her thinking behind the hilarious quip, explaining why she found the joke “emotional”.
This is where we need a spoiler warning: If you haven’t seen Barbie and don’t want to find out the ending, bookmark this page for after your cinema visit.
Barbie finishes with Margot Robbie’s character leave Barbieland behind for a new ‘human’ life in the Real World.
A voiceover explains she’s now living as Barbara Handler – the moniker is a nod to the doll’s inventor, Ruth Handler, and the daughter she named the toy after – and about to experience a huge, life moment.
As she approaches a receptionist’s desk, Barbie (who, need we remind you, has no genitals) beams and declares: “I’m here to see my gynaecologist.”
Speaking to USA Today, Greta said: “With this film, it was important for me that everything operated on at least two levels.
“I knew I wanted to end on a mic drop kind of joke, but I also find it very emotional.
“When I was a teenage girl, I remember growing up and being embarrassed about my body, and just feeling ashamed in a way that I couldn’t even describe. It felt like everything had to be hidden.”
The filmmaker added that she hopes “seeing Margot as Barbie, with this big old smile on her face, saying what she says at the end with such happiness and joy [...] can give girls that feeling of, ‘Barbie does it, too’.
“That’s both funny and emotional,” she concluded. “There are so many things like that throughout the movie.
“It was always about looking for the levity and the heart.”
After proving to be a huge hit with critics, Barbie made history on its opening weekend in cinemas.
In the US, it surpassed The Super Mario Bros. Movie to land the biggest opening weekend of the year and broke the record for the first weekend takings by a movie with a female director.