Let's just get it out of the way, I freaking love Barbie. So many memories and ideals are connected to her that even without the movie I still get nostalgic about. The iconography, the looks, Ken (~swoon~)... there was one problem though, I am a boy, I could never get a Barbie because my parents never would let me have one. Instead I stole my cousins mermaid Barbie and treated her like one of my most precious toys until she disappeared, perhaps she went into Barbieland? Greta Gerwig's movie seemingly let us tap into all of that and more thanks to a great PR team that I haven't seen work their magic since a long long time, in other words hype has been BUILT. How does it fare? I left the cinema with a smile but I wish that it could have something MORE. Let me explain down below.

Barbie is a movie that is about Barbie, the doll, the idea, living in a world separate from reality called Barbieland a world where Barbie is everything, from the president to a Nobel prize laureate to a doctor. She runs this world in all her iterations, until the stereotypical Barbie somehow gets thoughts about death, she gets a flat foot (CHAOS!) and she gets cellulites (THE HORROR!)- she has to fix this by travelling in the real world with Ken and in this she meets a hard working mother and her cynical daughter- fun hijinks galore!

This movie has got the aesthetics DOWN, like it's so pretty and so meticulously done with all the details, to how the actors act and how the worlds are built- this is more on how the Barbie world is, because when it mixes with the real world. That's where things get a bit complicated.

Example; There's no actual "real" separation between Barbieland or the real world, meaning that the real world feels like a mirror flipped version of Barbieland where people act just as outlandish as the titular dolls. I kinda wish that Greta would've made a script that actually puts Barbie in real world, how it is right now, and I know that Greta is great at making reality feel relatable and recognisable and human but I felt there was not much of a difference. Maybe it was so that they could fill the whole Mattel-company storyline in it? Either way I wish that Greta would play more with these contrasts and fish-out-of-water-feelings.

This in turn makes the other characters that should be relatable for the moviegoers- i.e. The daughter and the mother feel painfully flat and just unnecessary for the story overall, despite making them "deep" they felt honestly super flat, like dolls and stereotypes of characters in a movie. And I don't think that was Greta's intention, not if you see the movies that she's done before where there's always a singular perspective but here I think she's kind of confused on who to use the perspective the most on. Luckily it is Barbie and Ken for the most of the movie, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are doing a fantastic job at playing these characters and it's in their moments where the comedy shines the most.

Another missed opportunity generally I think is just addressing the gay history that is tied to the Barbie brand. And how gay men like me were influenced by it- not to say that this was absolutely important for a movie like this but I still feel like it would've made sense, at least the gay doll of 90s Ken (who was made popular in the 90s due to being bought by mostly gay men) made an appearance, if only briefly. I know, I shouldn't make demands about this but I feel like there would've been something even more interesting with addressing all the boys that play with Barbie dolls, the "real world" feels very black and white in this sense. But I regress, this is just a tangent and a thought!

I love the comedic and camp elements, I think they are what sustain the movie and the fashion of course. Also I love that it brings forth the themes of feminism as that is needed in a movie like this, I think that it does so in a great manner. Is it the movie that I wanted? Not really, but I'm glad that it exists, I'm glad that I saw it. Maybe I was too much swayed by the whole PR marketing strategy but I really wanted this to be a new camp and fun fun classic. Instead it feels just good and that's ok. I wanted it to be more of an adult-oriented movie and maybe that's where Greta kind of flubbed it, trying to make it both kid and adult friendly but she honestly doesn't succeed at neither and that's alright.