Barbie (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence.
Directed by Greta Gerwig. Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and America Ferrera.

I'd be surprised if anyone doesn't know the gist of the Barbie movie, but here goes: It's Greta Gerwig's take on adapting the classic children's doll to a film narrative. We follow Margot Robbie as "Classic Barbie" in Barbieland as she has a bit of an existential crisis and has to enter the real world to find her purpose again. Gerwig and I seldom see eye-to-eye in her films, and that mostly holds true here when it comes to her female leads. Ryan Gosling as Ken absolutely steals the show here, with a far more compelling character arc than Barbie or almost any of her female co-leads, and it's no shade on Robbie, who is a talented actress. Gerwig's experience of femininity is just so drastically different than my own that I don't connect to Barbie any more than I did Lady Bird or her version of Jo March. That being said, it is a very *fun* movie, with lots of jokes that perfectly land and some gorgeous atmospheric set design. It's worth watching just for the sets and costumes alone, and if your style of storytelling meshes with Gerwig, I'd imagine it'd be an even more enjoyable ride. But ultimately, I admire it from a little bit of an emotional distance.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Barbie > The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Barbie < Key Largo

Barbie > The Tragedy of Macbeth

Barbie > The Country Girl

Barbie > Auntie Mame

Barbie > Father of the Bride (1991)

Barbie > National Lampoon's Vacation

Barbie < The Menu

Barbie > The Palm Beach Story

Barbie < H.M.S. Defiant

Barbie < Leaving Las Vegas

Barbie > Feet First

Final spot: #976 out of 3826, or 74%.