If you’ve watched TV, gone online or even just ventured outside your home lately, it can’t have escaped your attention that Greta Gerwig’s long-awaited Barbie film is finally almost here.
The hype has been building ever since we caught our first glimpse of Margot Robbie in character as the iconic doll, but things ramped up when the first meme-ready trailer dropped in the spring, followed by a marketing campaign that dominated social media.
After that came the star-studded soundtrack, a seemingly-never-ending line of tie-in merchandise and a glittering press tour that has made Margot and Ryan Gosling pretty much unavoidable for the last few weeks (until, of course, the whole thing was brought to an abrupt halt by that whole SAG-AFTRA strike debacle).
As a result, the film has undoubtedly become the most talked-about of 2023, and while we’re happy to hold up our hands and say we’ve been as swept up in the pink tornado as much as anyone… it’s also been hard to ignore that tiny voice in the back of our heads that just kept on questioning: “Can the Barbie film – or, indeed, any film – actually live up to all this hype?”.
Well, we’re pleased to report that it can. Not only is Barbie an effective dose of candy-coloured escapism, and one of the funniest new comedies to come out in recent history, it’s also genuinely thought-provoking and, at times, quite devastating. What a relief.
In case you’re one of those who hasn’t spent the last three months watching the Barbie trailer at least once a day (we can’t be the only ones, right?), the film centres around the titular doll, played by Margot, who spends her days in Barbie Land hanging out with her Barbie pals, having Barbie dance parties and generally living her best Barbie life. Until she’s not.
From nowhere, things quickly start to unravel in her life. Her unnaturally-arched Barbie feet suddenly hit the floor, her perfect routine is thrown out of whack and, oh yeah, she starts to be consumed by thoughts of impending death. Fun!
Guided by the oracle “Weird Barbie” (and accompanied, begrudgingly, by her always-eager right-hand man Ken), Margot’s character ventures to the “Real World” to help set things right, where she discovers she and her Barbie pals haven’t quite impacted society for the better in the way they’d hoped.
It also turns out to be an eye-opening experience for Ken, who – after a lifetime in Barbie’s shadow – begins to flourish in his new surroundings, with genuinely unsettling results.
This is just one of the areas the Barbie movie managed to surprise us. Our biggest worry heading into the film was that a lot of the plot may have already been given away in the trailer. While admittedly much of the first act plays out like an extended version of the teaser, with a few clever gags added in , there were still plenty of satisfying twists ahead – particularly involving Ryan’s Ken and Rhea Perlman’s mysterious character – that we’re happy were kept under wraps until now.
It’s hard to play favourites among the cast, but we have to shout out Margot for her stand-out performance, helping us root for a character who could so easily have become one-dimensional or even irritating in the wrong hands.
Much has been made of Ryan’s performance as Ken, and he deserves it, taking the character to places we truly didn’t expect, and supporting players Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera and Will Ferrell all deserved to be singled out for praise, too.
But it has to be said, the true star of the show is Greta Gerwig, who directed and co-wrote Barbie. The three-time Oscar nominee created a film that’s visually stunning and so jam-packed with fun details and Easter eggs that the only way to spot them all would be through repeated viewing.
She’s also gifted film fans with a script that manages to be both laugh-out-loud silly and heart-breaking – often within the same scene – and it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a quote-along sleepover go-to for Generation Alpha, akin to Clueless, Mean Girls and Easy A before it.
The filmmaker mostly manages to toe the line between irreverence and outright disrespect, sending up Barbie and pointing out its critiques without turning the whole thing into a hatchet job. She also makes it clear that there’s room for all viewpoints on the brand – love, hate, apathy – in her Barbie Land.
Of course, a Mattel-endorsed Barbie movie is still a Mattel-endorsed Barbie movie, and even the teenager who at one point brands the character a “fascist” who’s responsible for “setting the feminist movement back 50 years”, glorifying capitalism and “destroying the planet” is won over by her in the end.
Still, to anyone nervous about Barbie living up to expectations, take a sigh of relief, gather up your Barbie pals and get ready for some big laughs. Life in plastic, we’re relieved to say, is every bit as fantastic as Aqua promised all those years ago.
Barbie is in cinemas from 21 July. Watch the trailer below: