Daniel Evans

I was very excited to see this film! I grew up playing with a few action figures including my sister's Barbie's. The visuals of this film are stunning! The set design and styling of the film is very fun. It uses old style film techniques that make it feel very dreamy. I was very confused by the messaging of the film. There was alot of plot points that felt very contidictory to each other and it wasn't clear what the film was really trying to say. It was clear there was a strong ideological message they were trying to communicate of inequality in the real world but the way they went about it felt damaging to men and women. The messaging felt that men didn't have a purpose and the film concludes by Ken saying he just needs to be himself but that's not very clear what being himself means. The Ken's don't have jobs let alone anywhere to live in Barbieland. There were themes of degridating motherhood. Gloria does give a little speech saying you can be a mother and have a career which was nice but that conflicted with the other messaging of the film where they repeatedly mention that they cancelled the mother Barbie. The film also opens with little girls smashing their baby dolls which felt like a hate towards motherhood, babies and looking after children. I think they could have delivered a strong message that women can be what ever they want but I don't think that needed to come at the detriment of shaming motherhood. If I were to write the film I'd have the opening scene be that the girls give the babies over to a group of boys to look after while they observe Barbie. This balances the idea that it's a shared responsibility between father's and mothers to care for babies. I didn't find the film very funny I did find it amusing but it wasn't laugh out loud funny. The one bit I found utterly hilarious is when they have a cut away fake advert for depressed Barbie. It was so unexpected but in someways I wish they stuck with that point that Barbie dolls don't need to be happy all the time. Im glad I watched the film because of its incredible visual spectacle but it's not a film I would recommend nor a film I'd watch again.