Barbie

           

I both enjoyed and was nonplussed by Greta Gerwig's Barbie. The film is well paced, winningly costumed and designed, and spritely in tone. Gerwig has given the film the look of a technicolor MGM musical with an emphasis on pink, a wise choice given the artificial splendor of the Barbie aesthetic. Ms. Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, have done their due diligence in researching the more arcane branches of the Barbie family tree in a way that both celebrates and satirizes the mythology around the Mattel doll.

However, the praise lavished by some critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum cited the film's "almost Brechtian camp", seems overblown to me. Gerwig wants to have her cheesecake and eat it, too. The lampoon of Mattel's CEO, played by the perpetually bloviating Will Ferrell, lacks even the sting of an SNL skit. It is hardly akin to the acidic portraits of capitalistic exploiters concocted by Brecht and George Grosz. There is a surface intelligence to the film, references include Proust, Kubrick, and Stephen Malkmus, that makes it appealing to critics, but, when the film seizes upon themes like mortality and cognitive dissonance, it quickly discards them. Barbieland could have been another Cloud cuckoo land, but it is, ultimately a colorful setting. As a personal statement, Barbie is less interesting than either Lady Bird or Little Women.

Still, as summer blockbusters go, Barbie is entertaining fare. I have always found Margo Robbie robotic, but since she is playing a plastic figurine, one might call it good casting. The casting of Ryan Gosling was a stroke of genius. Ken is the comic relief of the film and the Goose, used to poking fun at his own chiseled frame, lovingly captures his doltish appeal. I hope the success of Barbie does not auger a Hamburglar movie.