Around 15 mins into Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, we’re watching a song sequence, Dua Lipa’s Dance the night away. There’s something familiar about the song – the retro flavour in the dance and set design is gnawing at me. After the film ended, it took me a few hours to realise that it reminded me of a similar piece in Student of The Year (2013) featuring a recreated version of Nazia Hassan’s Disco Deewane. Apart from the elegant new disco beats, it occurred to me why it reminded me of a Karan Johar film, where he tried to conjure something out of nothing. That’s because even Gerwig’s film has a similar cloudy texture, where everything seems too spruced up even for a fantasy.It’s obviously not a bad thing. There are enough films focusing on materialistic excesses, only to surprise us with moments of insight. Unfortunately, Barbie doesn’t emerge as a film compellingly subversive or original, and it’s a shame because it seems sincere and earnest for the large part.Opening with a hilarious 2001: A Space Odyssey gag, something that would have felt funnier had the marketing executives not led with it for the film’s promotions, Gerwig’s film establishes the difference between the real world and ‘Barbie land’ – an alternate world where the dolls live. Barbie (Margot Robbie) – we’ll later find out that she’s called the stereotypical Barbie – wakes up in her palatial doll house. She wakes up with perfect hair, uses a slide to get to her kitchen, and floats her way into the driver’s seat of a car. Gerwig sets the rules of her world – where Barbies run this realm – as presidents, academics, scientists and writers. The men in this world – called Ken – are entrusted with menial work, like standing on the beach, sporting lush hair and perfect abs.Gerwig’s film focuses on Robbie’s Barbie – who starts ‘malfunctioning’, after she wakes up with bad breath, and begins to have thoughts of death. We’re also introduced to Ken (Ryan Gosling), who lives only to get Barbie’s attention. When Barbie realises the only way to rectify the cellulite on her skin (and the ‘weird’ thoughts she’s having), is to go to the real world and meet the person playing with her, to fix the ‘space-time’ continuum between Barbie Land and the real world, Ken accompanies her – an act of reckless, selfless kindness. Gosling, who has spent a quarter of a century in the film business hearing about his ‘Ken doll’ looks, is disarmingly sincere here.The duo reach Los Angeles, California, which is also which is the headquarters of Mattel, the company manufacturing Barbie and Ken. It’s in this section of the film when it scores its highest. Both Barbie and Ken are coming to realise that the real world might be just a little different from what they’d imagined. Gerwig keeps the tone light even as both Barbie and Ken try to navigate the absolute opposite notions of the genders in the real world. Over here, men run things. Teenage girls hate dolls for setting unachievable standards for appearances. Barbie breaks down on learning that the world treats her with disrespect because of her gender, while Ken seems to be enjoying all the new-found attention he gets for the way he looks (and also his gender).Gosling is a hoot as someone who can’t control his joy after ‘discovering’ patriarchy, realising the real world values him. Gosling is completely believable as he sells his big, doofus smile reaching the conclusion that it’s he who deserves to be at the centre of Barbieland, soon to be renamed ‘Kendom’. Robbie is earnest as the most perfect-looking person to have ever existed, striving to be more than her looks. If both Babylon (2022) and this are anything to go by, nobody can cry better than her. Ironically, Gerwig’s film isn’t able to give Robbie her own distinct flavour.The primary conceit of Barbie, viewing the age-old battle of sexes through the lens of the equal rights movement, is an interesting one. It succeeds to an extent, taking two central figures who defined ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ for an entire generation and investigating their gender roles in a Utopian setting. It never muddies itself with in-between nuances. It’s either war between Barbies and Kens or one set dominating the other. Gerwig’s film addresses co-existence, as Barbies and Kens discover lives beyond their primary ‘functions’, but they mostly feel like feeble nudges.One of the most disingenuous things about the film is the involvement of Mattel – which, while at one level can be perceived as a company introspecting about its capitalist history – could also be seen as a company trying to leverage its “self-awareness” for image purposes. Will Ferrell – in a sensational cameo – plays the whimsical, greedy CEO, who chases Barbie and Ken all the way to Barbieland. The pitch of Barble is cartoonishly high, which Ferrell effortlessly matches. However, if Greta Gerwig’s film was meant to be an indictment of set gender roles and men’s greed fuelling those notions, the final film ends up feeling more like a gentle reprimand.By the end, Barbie commits the cardinal sin: it talks down to its audience. America Ferrera goes on a feminist monologue bender ‘turning’ brainwashed and servile Barbies into their original selves. It’s a speech that seems to be written by someone who saw screenshots of the Laura Dern monologue from Marriage Story (2019) on Twitter. No surprise then that the director of Marriage Story – Noah Baumbach (also Gerwig’s long-time partner) is credited as co-writer.During the closing minutes of Barbie, I felt like I was watching a live-action Pixar movie – without any of the tender subtext or deftness to mine a thin conceit. Gerwig’s film specialises in leaving nothing unsaid.Greta Gerwig is a talented, fun filmmaker – who knows a thing or three about a good adaptation. Her last film, Little Women (2019) is proof. It’s unfortunate that in a film where she goads her characters to find themselves, her creative voice is flattened out by a corporation’s.
