The meanest thing I could say about this movie is ‘Has extreme Don’t Worry Darling energy’.
I have never seen a movie more desperate to justify itself. It’s trapped in this endless neurosis over what it is- a blockbuster Barbie movie in 2023 by an acclaimed art house director that is fun but also deep but also earnest but also self aware but also but also but also. Every point it raises it brings up a counterpoint to before the audience can, every frame is trying to prove it’s not just product but art. It’s never just Barbie. It’s never confident or even comfortable in its skin. You cannot for a second be immersed in Barbie because it’s not a story so much as a visual dissertation without a central thesis, it’s a student film riffing on the big dogs hoping it’s underdog audacity will carry it but given a budget in the millions. It so desperately wants you to like it, to know it’s in on the joke too.
Everythng is an ouroboros here: an endless loop of argument and counterarguement feeding itself. Isn’t it shitty how the Mattel boardroom is full of men? Ah, but isn’t it cool how Mattel’s acknowledged it with this niche? And it’ll mythologize Barbie’s creator but uh don’t worry she did tax evasion we know that, now let her impart into Barbie the experience of all women. Barbie helps women, Barbie hurts women, Barbie is told to be everything so isn’t she just like women, but it is better to be a creator than the idea, and in the end, hasn’t Barbie helped all these women? Oh uh why is this blonde white Barbie the centerpiece of it all and helping not only her diverse Barbie friends but a Hispanic woman and her daughter? Don’t worry we’ll have the daughter call her a white savior! But don’t worry we’ll have the mom say she’s not! It’s fascinating to watch, honestly. It’s a film that wants to prove to you so so bad that it works but it doesn’t and it knows it doesn’t and it knows you knows. It’s Gerta Gerwig wrestling with taking this job for an hour and a half.
The cast is more than game and able. Margot Robbie is doing her damndest to find the heart and soul in this role, and there’s one scene with an old lady near the end of the first act/beginning of the second that actually works, for just a moment, more than any of the big third act soliloquies or montages with emotional ballads. And as someone who’s seen Blade Runner 2049 and Drive, this is the best Ryan Gosling performance I’ve seen. The man commits and delivers a surprisingly compelling and entertaining antagonist. The movie can’t quite reconcile what he’s done with his ending, or tie it into the themes- is Ken letting go of Barbie and the need to define himself for or against her symbolizing the need for men to do the same, and if so, why play it so lightly and sympathetically?- but that’s not his fault. And the supporting cast are entertaining, but you just can’t have big laughs with a movie that feels like it’s constantly checking in the corner of its eye after every joke to see if you’re laughing, grin stuck in place. It’s not as funny or as smart as it wants to be, and the sad thing is, it feels like it knows that too.
There is some great set design, cinematography, dazzling choreography, popping colors, and some fun high points. But I can’t imagine many kids liking it. And we’ve seen how conservatives have taken this movie. And anyone’s who’s progressed beyond the politics of. Well. A feminist blockbuster Barbie movie will find it cloying or condescending or just incredibly basic. It’s aimed at a very specific crowd who will buy what it’s saying, the liberals who see corporate feminism as progress, who agree that it’s just about a little change sometimes, who are ready for something just a little more complex than a SNL sketch. I don’t regret seeing it, because I was deeply engaged the whole time seeing it struggle at war with itself, in pain for its whole existence. It’s not a boring movie by any means. It wants to say everything before the audience can say it first. It’s the endpoint of The Lego Movie and Enchanted- the corporations interrogating and justifying themselves, and the cracks in this formula are too large to ignore. It wants to be so much, and the attempt is as darkly mesmerizing as a fly thinking it can somehow and someway metamorphize into a butterfly and suffocating and struggling in its makeshift cocoon, but this is one Barbie that fundamentally just cannot break out of its box.
Ironic title, considering this film is itself a disaster. Read the book instead. Don't watch this expecting to get an accurate idea of how The Room was made because it only vaguely represents what actually happened. Personalities and motivations deviate wildly from the source material. For instance, Tommy is depicted as far more callous and harshly than in the book, and Greg is shown to be extremely excitable and goes along with everything Tommy suggests, whereas the book shows that Greg actually tried to reason with Tommy and was quite sceptical about him, despite them being friends. Greg and a lot of the other characters seem crazy and over-the-top, which makes Tommy seem normal by comparison.
The film is also edited very strangely. For the most part the story is told chronologically. However there are a couple of times when the story jumps forward or backward very briefly. Although the original book is not told in chronological order, this film does not pull of the technique successfully as the scenes are too brief and random for it to be coherent. It just feels like an editing error. Furthermore, there's even a bit where a scene we've already watched is replayed at a completely irrelevant point in the film. Perhaps this is a homage to The Room which does something similar. But it makes far more sense in Wiseau's film, which is saying something.
Considering The Room is often considered one of the worst films ever made, it's interesting that The Disaster Artist is actually a far worse film. The Room may have its issues, but it is funny and entertaining. Which is more than can be said for this film.
What is a woman? You are either Male, Female or Hermaphrodite the rest is made up. You either have a penis or a vagina... If you cut of your penis and take hormones you are still a male with a cut off penis that's taking female hormones. Two of the chromosomes (the X and the Y chromosome) determine your sex as male or female when you are born. They are called sex chromosomes: Females have 2 X chromosomes. Males have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome. If there are extra chromosomes its very rare and a defect. What is this clown world? You can't argue with facts...
I have nothing against transgenders but let's keep it real! It's the same when I would identify myself as a male cat while you clearly see a human female. And I can't expect anyone to change reality and enter my imaginary delusional bubble and call me a male cat. Just because you feel like something doesn't make it reality. Just like Martina Big isn't a black woman, Dennis Avner isn't a tiger and Rodrigo Alves isn't a Ken Doll. But again if you are a male and you really want to live your life as a female go do what makes you happy! Live your life as a transgender! But don't claim to be something you are not just because you feel like it.
I really wanted to quote this:
Matt: "I want to understand reality and get to the truth."
Professor Dr. Patrick Grzanka: Yea, I'm really uncomfortable with that language "getting to the truth" because that sounds deeply transphobic to me and if you keep going we are going to stop the interview. The word truth is condescending and rude"
