Barbie (DVD)

Hi Barbie! The incredible feat of making my childhood obsession with Barbie feel like a positive thing again, rather than a negative influence I'm supposed to regret. Barbie's script has been flipped, and in the most celebratory, fun way no one ever could have expected.For so long, Barbie has been portrayed as the embodiment of everything wrong with the world for women. We were supposed to think of her as a villainous presence, a menace that planted a poisoned seed in our childhoods.That's not how Little Me felt when I looked at Barbie.I wasn't thinking about how I couldn't measure up to her, or her measurements.No way! I got to be her, inhabit her, and she was me -- my avatar, an extension of myself, a 3D object that acted in my place in a safe, controlled environment. I was Barbie and Barbie was me.She never made me feel like I didn't want to be me. On the contrary, she was comforting if something/someone had made me feel bad. Even the big stuff. Or if something had made me feel 'less than.' She was where I turned and she made me feel better. Or let me act out the ways I was feeling. She had no down side.I never wanted her boobs anyway. I thought they looked painful. And her tiny waist just looked weird and physically deformed. Not like a body I should want. (Magazines did that. Thanks, Vogue.)What Greta has done is take all those feelings of love I always felt, and removed the shame from having loved her. Barbie is not the embodiment of everything wrong in the world for women. She actually evolved right alongside women, changing with the times. Barbie looked at her omnipresence in young girls' lives during a crucial developmental stage and saw how important it was/is that she be a role model. Though it took way too long to become representative of all skin colors, Barbie is now that today.This film is a comedy and I cried. Multiple times. I cried happy tears, and amazed tears. Tears of honest to God gratitude. Because I had been transported back into Little Me and felt immersed in the wonder of the Barbie world, feeling once again how happy it had always made me deep down and in a significant way. Feeling it again, not just looking back on it and remembering it. That feeling hit me in the gut, and I got teary.But I ugly cried (like, paused it and let the floodgates open) when I realized that I'd never before experienced feeling quite this seen. Simultaneously discovering new ways she had been significant to me that I'd never thought about. I felt like Little Greta and Little Me grew up together, she just got me. So well. This movie knew me. It understood me. Seriously, when people talk about "feeling seen" this is the definition of that feeling. To be seen at a fundamental level, living inside my brain, defining who I am today and what Little Me thought about what the future could be -- not just for all women, but specifically for Big Me. And Little Me. I cried.Side note: I love the portrayal of Hasbro. It was a genius move in a film that had already wayyyy surpassed genius before Hasbro steps into the picture. It was like getting more touchdowns than you actually need. It takes awesome to wicked awesome.

Over the last decade, Greta Gerwig has released films that have improved upon themselves one after another, and with Barbie, she has utilized every tool at her disposal to craft an insanely fun and crowd-pleasing film. The film is led by a perfectly cast Margot Robbie as Barbie, and Ryan Gosling delivers a genuinely Oscar-worthy performance, committing 110 percent and going even further to make every one of his scenes a highlight, especially in terms of humor. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt have significant roles; they handle some of the heavier emotional moments, and their performances truly land.There is not a single bad performance among the huge cast, with Alexandra Shipp standing out among the supporting actors, and Micheal Cera nailing every single joke he's given. The film's story, while incredibly funny, also has a lot to say, and it is overwhelmingly successful, with one monologue from America Ferrera landing incredibly hard. The whole thing builds to an absurdly fulfilling climax that also emotionally hits the mark, resulting in an incredibly affecting film.The entirety of BarbieLand is a gorgeous and fully realized world; the sets are stunning and deserving of Oscars, as are the different outfits used throughout the film. However, I felt that the other location was a tad underwhelming, but by no means bad—just not as visually stunning as BarbieLand. It feels at times like the culmination of a decade of films from Gerwig and Baumbach, creating a sharply funny script with an overwhelming amount of jokes that land perfectly. The cinematography from Rodrigo Prieto, particularly in BarbieLand, is stunning, and the soundtrack, with a fantastic musical number, adds to the overall greatness of the filmBarbie is excellence from top to bottom and, once again, an absolute winner from Gerwig