This is a film that should not have worked. It wants to go from goofy, to serious, to moralistic, to sentimental, all at once. Which is similar to the multi-tone "Everything Everywhere All At Once". Both movies try to juggle different tones and themes and both succeed for the most part. One thing Barbie has going in its favour is that it knows its limitations and mercifully clocks in less than two hours. The script explores many aspects of the aura of the Barbie doll and its legacy. This is a fresh topic that alone provides interesting insight. An original premise in the world of cookie-cutter franchise sequels. Both the positive and negative aspects of what the Barbie doll represents is addressed without holding back. Amazingly, even the Mattel corporation itself is lampooned. So the script is not only allowed to address less popular characteristics about the doll, but finds real insight about what Barbie and Ken represent to young kids compared the more mature adult world.

But a script normally can't have its cake and eat it to. It's a lighthearted trip into Barbieland, but also finds true sadness in how we give up our active imagination once we get older, and the need to be serious about the real world. Not only that, but it delivers straight forward lessons about a male dominated society and how woman are rarely given positions of power. Give credit to co-writer and director Greta Gerwig for mastering all things Barbie, sticking it all in a blender, and making a cohesive piece of work that transcends expectations for a movie based on a toy doll. Give credit to the powers that be that took a chance on such an unlikely hit movie and keeps the narrative moving along in engaging and unpredictable ways.

Not that one could make this movie with other actors in the lead roles, but the persona and especially the physical likeness of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling seem to be a perfect match. Robbie especially brings a heartfelt sadness in a couple of scenes that make her character more than one dimensional, despite being based on a plastic doll. Gosling brings his lighthearted personality to the role of Ken convincingly, yet allowing the one dimensional character to wish for a sense of belonging.

I also really enjoyed how the script made comparisons of the plastic world of Barbie and Ken to the plastic lifestyles of the uber rich in LA. When watching scenes of Barbie & Ken hitting it off, I could see Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce in their place. The production feels like a big Hollywood musical. Large sets with large scale musical numbers. But yet they have an avant garde feel to them, as if it was a Tim Burton film, or maybe a fantasy scene from a Coen brothers movie. The hundreds of props littered throughout the film also provide meaning as they are symbols of the masculine and feminine mystique.

Barbie the movie is a surprising existential essay that finds meaning behind the plastic. The script achieves in its quest to draw interest from the average moviegoer by revealing how much of the Barbie world lives within us.