Film-event of the North American summer season, “Barbie” strictly fulfilled the hype that it fueled in recent months. And the person most responsible for this is Greta Gerwig, the great conductor of relativizing the pink universe by creating a film that is both established as escapist entertainment and a discursive valve against patriarchy. These extremes work fully.
The story accompanies Stereotype Barbie (Margot Robbie, who was born for the role), who on a not so beautiful day, wakes up from her hitherto perfect life, with thoughts of death. This imperfection unfolds into others that make her leave Barbieland for real life, in search of an answer and even some meaningful meaning.
The very clever script is by the director herself, with her frequent life and work partner, Noah Baumbach, and the way she builds the satire on the stereotypical view of what a Barbie represents to the female figure in society is very sagacious. This counterpoint gives Ryan Gosling the best scenes in the film (and one of his best performances) and jokes woven from a skillfully intelligent humor, often much more adult than the audience for which the doll is commonly intended.
This appropriation that Greta proposes here relativizes even the film’s own criticism, and that’s good. The director is aware of this and skillfully varnishes everything (the art direction is exceptional!) so that, while distracting our gaze, she instills a hilarious and interesting reflection on the female condition through the questionable prism of a doll that helped not to build it. The joke starts there. And ends up laughing at herself.
