‘‘Barbie’’ directed by Greta Gerwig film review © Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI) 10.08.2023  

Audiences and critics will remember ‘‘Barbie’’ for a long time as a light-hearted film that came at a time when the entire world was going gaga over big films such as Oppenheimer and MI-dead reckoning part one.

It is said that most children play with toys in their childhood. However, there are also a lot of people who never got to play with toys especially dolls. For those of us who didn’t get a chance to play with a Barbie doll in their lives, we remember it through Danish dance-pop group ‘‘Aqua’’ as it released the internationally acclaimed hit song ‘‘Barbie Girl’’ in 1997.

‘‘Barbie’’ (2023) talks about the existential crisis faced by its main character Barbie. It all started on the day when dancing with her friends, by mistake Barbie utters the dreadful word ‘‘Death’’. This has tremendous emotional impact on all the inhabitants of ‘‘Barbieland’’ especially Barbie and her friend Ken. They decide to leave the pleasures of a perfect life that Barbieland offers to experience a firsthand familiarity of the tough life seen in the real world.   

Through Barbie director Greta Gerwig intends to convey the overarching message that life is not perfect even for those who have always led a life of absolute comfort.  By helming ‘‘Barbie’’, she has directed a coming of age film with deep shades of comedy. For this film’s screenplay, American director and actress Greta Gerwig has worked with her partner Noah Baumbach. They have ensured that through a film like ‘Barbie’, teenagers and young people will be able to see and understand the meaning of tough concepts like existential crisis, matriarchy and patriarchy in a new light.

‘Barbie’ film’s innovative sets offer the wow factor especially the Barbieland. Everything is in pink that is considered universally to be a color of love. Among the actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are absolutely magnificent as ‘‘Barbie’’ and ‘‘Ken’’. Both of them are ably supported by other actors namely Will Ferrell.

Apart from entertaining audiences all over the world, ‘Barbie’ has a social message for everybody. It makes us all believe that feminism will never go out of fashion.  One of the key positive aspect of this film is that it is a light assault on the sexual mores in a hyper sexualized modern world. In ‘‘Barbie’’, a different, new facet of patriarchy is shown. According to it, the real world is cruel, tough whereas but in an imaginary, toy world everything is hunky-dory and everything is achievable. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach wrote their screenplay in a subtle manner that it counterbalances both the world known to human beings. It is a world in which a boy and a girl can be good friends too. It is believed that there will always be Barbie and Ken as a couple but Ken and Barbie can also co-exist separately. Finally, critics and cinéphiles will remember ‘‘Barbie’’ as a light hearted film that came at a time when the entire world was going gaga over big films such as Oppenheimer, MI-dead reckoning part one.