*CONTAINS SPOILERS*
Summer 2023 was filled with brand-new movies at the theater, but Barbie was by far the most anticipated. “Barbenhiemer” weekend was expected to be the biggest weekend for movies of the year, and it did not disappoint. Globally, the movies collected more than $235 million just on opening weekend. Director Greta Gerwig now has the highest-grossing movie directed entirely by a woman, which perfectly conveys the message Barbie was trying to send.
The movie opens in perfect, pink, and utopian Barbieland. Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) wakes up in her perfect Dream House and goes through her (you guessed it- perfect) routine. The set of Barbieland is phenomenal, with tons of attention to detail from the pretend shower to the pretend fridge. In fact, so much pink paint was used for the set that there was a shortage of it globally.
After Barbie finds out her fleeting thoughts about dying and small amounts of cellulite are because the little girl who owns her is upset, she sets out for the real world with Ken (Ryan Gosling) to find her. In the real world, Barbie finds out it is not a sad little girl, but her mom playing with her. However, when she finds the teenage girl and her mother, she is being chased by Mattel CEO (Will Ferrell) to prevent her for causing controversy to the company. When she first meets the girl, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), she is told that Barbie is not received as the feminist icon she was created to be. The movie does a wonderful job of highlighting body issues in young girls that can be developed because of Barbie’s unrealistic body type. Barbie has a scene where she cries over the sadness Barbies could have caused to any young woman when her whole purpose was to show girls they could be anything. Margot Robbie was perfectly cast as Barbie in my opinion, as she has had such a wide range of roles throughout her career. She easily conveys a wide range of emotions, and as Barbie begins to feel human emotions throughout the film, most women in the room feel the emotions with her.
The emotional scenes of the film were absolutely beautiful. America Ferrera’s character, Gloria, goes into a monologue explaining the struggles women in our society face, ending it with the quote, “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman I know tie themselves to knots just so people will like us.” By the end of the movie, there’s a scene that shows Barbie learning to feel her emotions as a woman so she can go to the real world. Billie Eilish’s song “What Was I Made For?” plays as a montage of womanhood and all its complexities, specifically motherhood, is shown. Which for me, was the tearjerker of the film. By the end of Barbie, I had never been more eternally grateful for my mother and every other female figure in my life.
In my opinion, every person should watch the Barbie movie at least once. It has jokes that can make anyone smile, but also teaches the important lesson that womanhood is more than wearing makeup and having everything pink. It highlights the issue that no matter how perfect a woman tries to be the world will hate something about them. This movie once again leaves me stunned at the sheer talent of Greta Gerwig, whose storytelling from Little Women, to Lady Bird, and now Barbie, found me when I needed it the most. In conclusion, thank you Barbie, you are everything. And so am I.
