I went into Wednesday expecting to write things like "the greatest weekend in cinema", "Oppenheimer brings cinema to the screen again", "Barbie wins the weekend"... But this is so much more than that.

Barbie was perfect. It shows something that I was able to experience for the first time in my life: the artistic pleasure of movies as a communal and cultural experience. Although watching Titanic was one of the greatest communal experiences of my life, it's the immediate cultural relevance of Barbie that makes it a first for me. It's the best that movies can be. And above all else, in six years time this might be looked back upon as one of the best movies of the decade.

In the consumerist world's perfect fantasy sold to little girls as a toy-the polished plastic world of Barbie-everything is perfect. Starting with Barbie herself. Until the doll experiences something all too common to the real world but inexplicably strange to hers: an inexplicable desire to die. We get acquainted with the situation following a musical set-piece opening of the kind that tells you you're in for a great ride! (A pleasure made double for any Dua Lipa fan!)

As it turns out, someone in the real world (Gloria (America Ferrera) a woman working an office job at Mattel) has communicated these emotions to her. It's now up to Barbie to travel to the real world to repair the rift in the space-time continuum. Her typical but good guy boyfriend Ken joins in for the ride.

In the sweet and softhearted comedy that follows, Ken and Barbie make their first encounter with the real world, where Barbie finds out she's only ever sexualized, and Ken is treated with a newly discovered respect that he never knew in the Barbie world. Gradually, he discovers the patriarchy. When Barbie finally meets Gloria and her teenage daughter (beautifully cast and great showing from young Ariana Greenblatt) after they help her escape a chase with the corporate goons at Mattel that preside upon the cubical empire, the journey is done and they happily return to Barbieland. Only there's one problem: Ken has brought the patriarchy back home!

With the visual representations of masculinity in popular culture (pretty much Rocky Balboa), outrageous rocker outfits, and a great fancy of horses (I share this with Ken I have to say), Ken has now amassed all the aesthetics he needs to firmly establish the rule of the patriarchy in Barbieland. The comedy is bafflingly funny, and the subject is urgently topical.

I've lately had the feeling that movies today weren't as important as they used to, that they didn't mean as much and like Quentin Tarantino said and I agree, "they're not in the zeitgeist (the spirit of the age)." This movie was right in the zeitgeist!

It's thanks to a collaboration between Warner Brothers, Mattel (kudos to them for having the sense of humor), and an artist like Greta Gerwig that we're able to have her take something so deeply established in the pop culture and marry it with the standalone work of an artist and its integrity. The result is something I've never seen in a theater before.

In a scene where Barbie is experiencing an emotional breakdown, Gloria transitions into a long-running monologue about how it was like for her to be a woman in today's world. I sat and watched and thought it might had been something a bit clichéd and worn out. Everyone had settled into silence. Then the moment Gloria was done with the monologue, there was a pause, with her and with the audience, then the whole room erupted into applause! I joined right in! What the hell did I know... When the movie kept getting more and more exciting, and just transitioned into a modern-day musical set-piece this time around, people were so with it they had to applaud again. It was a truly great thing to see. (US audiences and people in Marvel movies are known to cheer for many things, but this was a different degree of sincerity.) At the end of it there was a buzz in the room, like everyone had just been part of something special.

Essentially you know it's a great situation, you have no idea where the movie might go next, and it keeps coming up with the right answer every single time. It's perfect.

More props to Greta; like all the truly great movies, it's also very personal. At first it's personal in the relevant but quirky mention of Rocky Balboa and The Godfather as symbols of the male-revolving world-movies that she herself wanting to be a filmmaker had had to deal with as deeply cherished and highly regarded in the masculine opinion around her-and it's personal again in the ending, and what she sees as most cherishable about being human, in what will stay with me as one of the classic shots of all time. The shot comes with Margot Robbie's perfecting of the single-eyed tear and using it the way you imagine they would in the great old times of cinema, except it's that much better because the times are today.

I've seen reviews (The Guardian) calling this a feminist thesis. It's neither a thesis (see Women Talking) nor a dogma. It's entirely cultural. And despite the story largely being a comedy about women banding together and helping each other break free of the omnipotent clamps of the patriarchy, Ken, who is an absolute joy in this movie, is treated to a delicate ending as well. The role was also a total gift of a role and Ryan Gosling was right there for it.

It's also the movie's quality as a journey of spiritual discovery, confrontation, and self-actualization, along with the great tradition of the Hollywood ending, that bring everything together and make this a proper pop culture opus.

As far as what this implies for the industry, this is the first time that we'll be able to have a strongly established director that isn't one of the folks who made their name in the 90s. This is not to say that Greta Gerwig is now going to make a Barbie every other year, nor does she have to. This is her Pulp Fiction, her Raiders of the Lost Ark, and dare I say her Godfather (wink wink). May she enjoy it. But she's definitely on my short list now of the most exciting directors working today, and someone that can carry the torch of great cinema wherever she goes next. I remember hearing her answer with Singin' in the Rain (1952) to a favorite movie question in a roundtable interview, and thinking who was this girl. Then I happened to see Singin' in the Rain a month later, and I knew that girl was cool.

Finally, I'm glad that an entire generation of young girls gets to grow up with a movie like this available to them. It's definitely not something Greta's generation had, not quite. It's also a culmination of the last ten years of popular culture, which is why I think it's one of the best movies of this period. But it's also gonna be remembered and talked about for decades to come. And based on its feminist scope, it might be already one of the most important movies of the 21st century.