Barbie

 There's one point in Barbie where Barbie (Margot Robbie) is about to be re-boxed by a murder of Mattel executives led by a paternalistic CEO (Will Ferrell). The new box smell triggers some old memories: "I'm having a real Proustian flashback" She says. The CEO looks at his assistants and mutters "Remember Proust Barbie? That did not sell very well." to knowing chuckles.
 The movie could have been terrible, and I would have still liked it just because of that one line. Luckily, there are a lot of other things to like here as well.

 Robbie plays 'stereotypical' Barbie, who lives in Barbieland with a bunch of other Barbies and a coterie of Kens. Barbies run everything, Kens are basically accessories, and everything is perfect all of the time: non-stop sleepovers and dance parties and nobel prizes all around.

 But all's not well with Stereotypical Barbie; lately, she's been thinking about death. Her heels have flattened, and there's even a hint of cellulitis on her thighs. She gets sent to see Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who's basically a Barbie who's been played with by Sid, the neighbour in Toy Story, and for some reason is an expert in toy metaphysics. Weird Barbie informs Barbie that her owner in the real world must have some issues, and that if she doesn't want to end up weird or continue getting less and less perfect, she needs to resolve them.
 So Barbie sets out to go out to the real world, and Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) comes along for the ride.

 The real world is not what they expected at all; in Barbieland everyone is aware of it, but believes that the example they set has made it into an egalitarian wonderland. That's dispelled soon on arrival: Barbie is ogled at and disrespected, while someone actually asks Ken for the time- a minuscule amount of respect that floors the poor guy.

 Barbie manages to find her owner (Ariana Greenblatt), who is a militant feminist and resents even the idea of Barbie - she even calls her a fascist; "(but) I don't control the railways or the flow of commerce." Barbie complains. Then she's hijacked by Mattel executives.
 Meanwhile, Ken, bedazzled with the fact that men have power in this reality, stocks up on books on the patriarchy (and horses) and embarks on a hilarious, doomed quest to get a job, trying to be something more than just beach Ken.

 Ken goes back and stages a coup in Barbieland while Barbie gets rescued from Mattel by her owner and her owner's mother (America Ferrera). After some misadventures Barbie eventually gets back to Barbieland, and... well, there's going to be a fight. Probably not in the way you imagine it though.

 I did not love Barbie. I was convinced I would after a very promising start, and that Proust line I quoted at the beginning may be the hardest I've laughed in a movie in a long time. There is a lot to love here, but there's a combination of factors that deflated my enjoyment. Part of it is that I think it's so overstuffed it kind of loses its way in the last act - it's dealing with too many things at the same time, it takes on too many themes and conflicts and flounders when trying to divide its attention between them. The other part is more superficial - I dislike camp as an aesthetic, and I hate musicals (there are a lot of song-and-dance numbers towards the end).

 There were a lot of scenes that I love the idea of, but not the execution. Not in any technical sense - it's just that once it became clear what they were about, they dragged a bit. A few too many contrivances in service of quick resolutions to something that should be a lot messier. Which is, yeah, absolutely too much to expect of a movie about fucking Barbie (that's fucking used as an adjective, not a verb, though This Ain't Barbie is probably a thing that exists by now); That's a problem that the movie creates for itself though.

 It gets a little too didactic, and also stacks the odds in its favour by making the real world cartoonily patriarchal; An executive just comes out and cops to it, in what's probably an accurate reflection of our reality from within the movie's heightened version of it, but it felt like a cheap shot that oddly felt to me like it diluted the message. Aaand... I'm definitely reading too much into it.

 On the other hand: Ideologically, the movie is a lot more complex that I expected. It's not a brilliant dissection of gender issues, but its feminism is honest, true and feels earned. Which is probably better on a kid-friendly comedy like this. It's also constantly striving to be balanced, playful and empathetic, and much of its critique isn't related to feminism specifically but more universal themes of identity, conforming to expectations, and what have you. It also puts its didacticism in practical terms so that someone like me, who isn't really familiar with feminist theory, can understand and relate to it.

 Huh, I'm kind of convincing myself that its dissection of gender issues might be kind of brilliant after all.

 When Ken institutes a ridiculous version of patriarchy in Barbieland, it's not a straw-man version of patriarchy - it's cartoony because Ken is a cartoon, a character that was only ever created as an attachment to Barbie, and the movie still reserves a lot of empathy for him without necessarily excusing his behaviour. OK, yeah, and there's a lot of takedown of chauvinistic/paternalistic shit, a lot of it hilarious and well observed.

 I didn't love Barbie, but I really liked it - there is a so much great stuff here, including some very resonant emotional beats - but even then, the movie is not the problem here, it's just not for me. I'm just offering an unsolicited take, as always, and obviously it's resonated with a lot of others; I couldn't be happier that it's been so successful.

 The acting is wall to wall great, and writer/director Greta Gerwig and her accomplices (obligatory shout-outs to co-writer Noah Baumbach, DP Rodrigo Prieto, and Production designer Sarah Greenwood, all of whom have done an incredible job) have fashioned an incredibly weird movie that's also funny as hell, clever, personal on a ridiculously large budget, and unlike anything else I've seen. That's one hell of a series of accomplishments.