Barbie!

[Prrambulate]

Who’s watching this? I think it’s going to have a massive opening week in the UK.

I’m so intrigued. At once a very subversive film, penned by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach; on another level, a film so heavily marketed that it seems to have entered the cultural mainstream. I wonder how it will straddle those tensions.

Loved it until the over sentimentality ruined it for me. I won't add a spoiler but there was a bit where I just switched off and wished for a sick bucket.

Really disappointed.

Wish I’d know what I was in for, as I went in for entertainment, and it felt like seething man-hating venom wrapped up in a pink bow.

Im a great movie buff. Have been for decades but, I suspect this might be the last film I go to see in the cinema. Not that it’s the worst film I’ve ever seen, it’s not, but entertainment seems to be an optional component to whatever narrative or agenda the writers/director/studio is pushing. I feel suckered into paying for what i thought would be entertaining, which just made me cringe. Maybe AI will make better movies.

DD asked to leave about 2rds of the way through, I thought it might get better or at least back off from the propaganda a bit, I regret asking her to stay til the finish.

Wtf is going on with cinema these days!!

It was gibberish. The last third of the film was nonsensical

Why can’t anyone dress how they like and not be forced to wear certain clothes, have their hair a certain way in order to be accepte

So your daughter liked what happened in the movie then and didn’t like Barbie land at the start of the film?

For those who are asking about taking small children. It's a 12 rated film which means the trailers are also 12 rated so e.g. at the mid afternoon I went to with my teenage DDs one of the trailers had the word 'whore' repeated several times. In Barbie itself there's no scary violence but there's some mild sexual harassment and swearing, including the F word. But mainly the plot will fly over their head, it's all about patriarchy but also is very meta, and they break the fourth wall a few times which may confuse small children. It's both a massive Barbie advert and very critical of what Barbie represents.

My teenagers and I loved it, and thought it was funny and clever. I think the feminism is actually well pitched for a teen, although my oh so sophisticated 15yo said 'America Ferrera's speech is saying nothing new'.

I don’t like most films. Even stuff other people rave about and Oscar winners such as A room with a View, Lord of the Rings, The Pullman based films, they all bore me. I much prefer live theatre or reading a book. It drives dh mad as I sit reading whilst he watches a film.
Yet I am going to see Barbie. I like films where they dare to have a decent female character. I’m hoping to be entertained and amused. Going with dd so as long as she enjoys it I’ll be fine.
I’m so tired of seeing films without decent female characters so I’m willing to give it a go.

I really enjoyed it - I thought it was a lot of fun and I liked the way it presented its message - in particular Barbie and Ken's initial confusion in the real world really hit home for me. And I'm definitely a "weird barbie" type and proud to be one 😊 - I liked the way her story played out also. Plus Ryan Gosling was hilarious.

'and they break the fourth wall a few times'
I missed these bits, can you hint?

@OneFrenchEgg did you not notice the line Helen Mirren (the Narrator) said about Margo Robbie? That was pretty much smashing the “fourth wall”😂

Oh yes id forgotten that. Wish they'd used her more it was kind of weird like I remembered she was there.

Hated the speech, it was quite basic. Some better points could have been made.

The speech was a standard AIBU rant. Fine, but nothing new.

I didn’t love it but it was ok. The two leads were both great and some of it was very funny but, like a pp, I was expecting more.
My daughter pointed out to me that when the women were in charge the men were just there, largely irrelevant and left to their own devices. However when the men took over they expected the women to wait on them and be there for their amusement. The toxicity of the patriarchy as opposed to the benign matriarchy.
I saw it with her, my husband and adult son and the conversation in the car home was quite enlightening. Both men are as far from toxic masculinity as it is possible to be, they are both wonderful men, but they were so shocked at the million examples of everyday sexism we told them about. They couldn’t believe some men still pull this shit.

I’ve just seen it and thought it was fab. I think the exploration of the dynamics between men and women was interesting. Normally in films it’s men who pretty much rescue women but in the end it was Barbie who rescued Ken as well as herself. The fact that people might come out and start discussing everyday sexism etc I think is a huge positive of the film. It might not have got everything right but the fact that it gets people talking and delving deeper into issues can’t be a bad thing. All of the actors were great and it’s everything I wanted it to be.

It was ok but nothing stellar or standout to make me want to go back and see it again.

There were some genuinely laugh out loud moments but honestly it was a bit one dimensional - it was pretty formulaic and relied on repackaging the same joke about Ken being a total himbo over and over again - and, ironically, for a movie that's supposed to be all about Barbie I thought the standout performance was Ryan Gosling.

The last third of the film just seemed to get all confused in itself ... Barbie's rule over Barbieland and Ken is there to amuse Barbie; Ken takes over and the Barbie's are just there to amuse the Ken's; the Barbie's retake control and the Ken's return to their previous position ... So then what? Nothing has changed, there's no rebalance of power; no trying to equal the balance on Barbieland to give them more autonomy and independent purpose and/or allow the Barbie's to be what they want to be not what they're told they have to be based on their label etc, things just go back to how they always were so what was the point of the last 2hrs?

Having said that, idk if it suffered in my view because I watched it right after Oppenheimer and after that behemoth of complex maths, science and history, Barbie felt a bit too simplistic and self aware

Yes, I thought it was quite clear in its messaging until the narrator made the spiteful remark about the supreme court and Kens getting to have as much power as women get in the real world.

It's such a hard thing to "balance" though, which I guess was the point. There were some very short skirts/heavy faces of makeup on those scientists and novelists; they can dress however they want, but do they want to because of the male gaze? And round and round we go.

Well I don't think Barbieland was meant to be a Utopia otherwise why would Barbie choose to leave?

Just saw It also enjoyed some of it but found the last 20 minutes confused and the will ferrell stuff just added nothing.

Feels anti the films message when the best thing about it was Ryan gosling and the Kens

She didn't? Without spoilers, there wasn't a choice?

I watched it today. Wow. So funny and brilliant.

It's not so much that it was supposed to be Utopia but I would have thought that by the end of the film there would have been signs of change in Barbieland - whether it was giving Ken some autonomy outwith his relationship with Barbie or even allowing some of the Barbie's to say "Hey, actually I don't want to go back to being a scientist/astronaut/doctor/cleaner etc I want to try being a dentist/teacher/SAHM/shopkeeper" etc - because ultimately it seems like literally nothing changed, it all went back to how it was before ... So what was the point?

Are you thinking of the shoe choice part? Because there definitely was a choice, later.

Right but I'm thinking of the first time - like it was utopia and she didn't want to leave. The later bits I switched off for as overly sentimental.

Maybe we could have Barbie with spoilers?

She definitely had a choice at the end!

Longest two hours of my life. First 30 minutes fun (and no denying RG and MR are fantastic) but honestly I considered leaving halfway through....