2023-07-19 19:05:51
by Paolo Mereghetti
Director Greta Gerwig continues her authorial journey in search of those moments of female emancipation already addressed in “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”
Let’s put it this way: seen from Mattel’s side, the film about its famous fashion doll can be considered a successful operation, perhaps not from a commercial point of view (it seems that after the sales exploits recorded during the pandemic, business has slowed down) but certainly from a promotional point of view because the whole film is an exaltation of the “Barbie world” and its brand image, which even takes the form of a real commercial catalog in the end credits.
Seen from the side of Margot Robbie, actor but above all producer (through her company LuckyChap Entertainment), the «Barbie» operation has certainly increased her bargaining power, her stature as a star and her merits in defending a female cinema. And the same can be said of Greta Gerwig, who continues her authorial journey in search of those moments of emancipation that she had begun to tell with «Lady Bird» and then with «Little Women»: here the circle comes full circle and the screenplay written together with her husband Noah Baumbach seems to want to pick up on Christine McPherson’s desire to escape and Jo March’s desire for self-affirmation to offer the restless Barbie the inspiration for her metamorphosis from doll to woman.
But from the point of view of the public? Here, let’s say that from this point of view the judgment on the film that is invading the whole world these days is more contrasted and less univocal. Because the ideas that hit the mark, starting with Rodrigo Prieto’s pastel photography and continuing with the good dose of irony that helps de-sweeten the ultra-sugary world of dolls with 12 heels, are not always supported by an adequate rhythm and inventive capacity. After a dazzling opening, already widely disseminated by marketing, where the arrival of the doll in the world of toys has the disruptive force of «2001: A Space Odyssey» (and of Margot Robbie’s statuesque body), the film immerses us in the Barbie world, where everything is perfect, smooth and laminated: the various incarnations of the doll live in a world without shadows or defects, made up only of smiles, dances and songs.
Only the various incarnations of Ken – there is the Caucasian one (Ryan Gosling), the African-American one (Kingsley Ben-Adir), the Oriental one (Simu Liu) and others – seem prey to envy and mutual jealousy, without however being able to undermine the contagious harmony of Barbieland. Surprisingly, the one who succeeds is Barbie herself, who discovers that she even thinks about death and realizes that she is no longer able to wear her heels. She will discover that someone in the real world has ended up attributing thoughts to her as a normal woman, perhaps even as a “modest” woman, and she just has to go there to try to close that strange door that connects humans with dolls. And surprisingly, Ken played by Ryan Gosling will also follow her on the journey.
It is at this point that the film risks being held back by its didactic ambitions: she meets a daughter and a mother (America Ferrera) who open her eyes to female needs and the obstacles they have to overcome, while Ken adopts the worst examples of male arrogance and arrogance. And even back in Barbieland, he continues to ask the viewer for an excessively “childish” complicity in overturning male domination. Greta Gerwig’s educational intent is evident.
At the beginning he makes Barbie in the real world a kind of naive and bewildered Forrest Gump (explicitly citing Robert Zemeckis’ film) and in the end he brings up the inventor of Barbie herself to reiterate that every girl is free to transform that doll into something alternative to the blonde and elegant icon who is the most popular, but ends up remaining a prisoner of her own ideological path and the final claim of a newfound sexuality is certainly not enough to give the film the empathic charge it needed .
July 19, 2023 (change July 19, 2023 | 19:05)
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