Barbie Was Everything and More

Barbie is probably the most anticipated film of the year.

Everyone has been talking about the film, even before they started filming it.

The film stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan gosling as Ken. The cast also includes includes America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Helen Mirren, and Will Ferrell.

The film premises focuses on Barbie going on a journey of self-discovery following an existential crisis.

Honestly, I had no idea of what to expect from this movie, I did not have a sense of what I was getting myself into.

We See The Beginning Of Barbieland

The opening scene was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In the opening scene, we watch a group of little girls playing with baby dolls. Barbie then enters the scene and introduces the notion of a doll who can be a young girls’ role model.

The scene was narrated by Helen Mirren, who spoke about how barbie came and helped girls’ fantasies grow and get more creative thus creating Barbieland.

The film was phenomenal, funny and in some ways relatable.

Throughout the film we see Barbie trying to find out who she is. This is something all of us have been through.

There comes a time in our life were we begin to wonder who we are and what we want out of life.

I was not expecting this film to give me deep feelings.

Although there was so much laughter, from the likes of weird Barbie (Kate micinon) and president Barbie ( Issa Rae). Some parts of the movie made me feel sentimental.

In particular, America Ferrera’s monologue about the expectations of women. The scene is already going viral on TikTok with young girls praising America Ferrera’s performance.

Margot Robbie is the perfect Barbie. Margot didn’t just look the part, She was charismatic and full of life. Robbie was able to capture the essence of Barbie through her mannerisms and tone of voice.

Her best scene was towards the end when Barbie expressed to Ruth Handler (creator of Barbie) her wish of becoming human. During this scene we see a montage of different women who were actually friends and family of women from the Barbie film crew. Billie Eillish’s ‘what was I made for’ plays in the background and this takes the scene to an emotional level. The montage truly exemplifies the human experience. It demonstrated the essence of girlhood and womanhood.

Ryan gosling did a phenomenal job as Ken. I cannot believe that people were doubtful of his performance. Gosling was hilarious and had the whole theatre in stitches.

We see Ken also going through his own existential crisis. He takes a step in to the real world with Barbie and realises that men have more control than women.

At first this excites him and he decides to take this idea back to Barbieland which soon turns out to a big mistake.

The idea of the patriarchy gets in to his head and he decides to change Barbie’s dream house to Ken’s ‘Mojo dojo casa house’.

Towards the end, we see Barbie and Ken understand each other for the first time. Ken realises that chasing patriarchy is exhausting and harmful. Ken begins to realise that he needs to find out who he is without Barbie. Whilst, Barbie comes to the conclusion that she wants to be human, rather than end up with Ken in Barbieland.

Overall, the Barbie Movie reminded us of all the expectations of society that burden women daily. It also told us that the human experience is weird, beautiful and for the most part complex.