By John Corrado

★★★½ (out of 4)

With her blonde hair and iconic figure, Barbie is one of the most recognizable toys of all time. Whether you view Mattel’s flagship doll as a beloved plaything or an impossible standard by which to judge female beauty standards, there’s little denying the impact that she has had since her debut in 1959.

A live action Barbie movie was an inevitability at some point due to the recognizability of this brand. But thanks to director Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with her partner Noah Baumbach, the version we have gotten just so happens to be one of the most audacious and ambitious studio films in recent memory based around a pre-existing IP.

Following up the incredible one-two punch of Lady Bird and Little Women, Gerwig knocks it out of the park with Barbie, taking what could have been a simple toy movie and instead crafting it into a gleefully entertaining yet also thought-provoking and even genuinely touching film about identity and autonomy. And I’m kind of in awe at what she pulled off, delivering a PG-13 Barbie movie that is geared more towards adults than kids.

The result is a summer comedy that is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but also has a lot more on its mind, as Gerwig explores the existential crises of a life-sized Barbie. The film is carried by wonderful performances from Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who steals every scene as (just) Ken, while the colourful production design and costumes are a feast for the eyes.

Blending absurdist comedy, subversive social satire, and heartfelt storytelling, Gerwig’s film tells the story of a Barbie girl in a Barbie world discovering that her life is plastic and, well, it’s not all fantastic. Robbie’s Barbie lives a blissful existence in Barbie Land, a place run entirely by women – including a female president (Issa Rae) and all-female Supreme Court – who all share the same name and live up to the ideal that Barbie can do and be anything.

Meanwhile, Gosling’s Ken is happy just to be noticed by Barbie, as he tends to his job of “beach,” and is eternally jealous of Ken (played by Simu Liu). The Kens all have their place in Barbie Land, pining after the Barbies and making themselves readily available to do things for them at a moment’s notice. Ken’s buddy Allen (Michael Cera), who fits all of his clothes, is even more of an anomaly in this binary world.

When Barbie starts noticing changes within herself (her arched feet are suddenly flat on the ground!), it requires her to venture out into the Real World of Los Angeles. It all starts when she begins experiencing feelings that are supposed to be unknown to any Barbie, and interrupts a big dance party with “all of the Barbies and planned choreography” to ask the dreaded question, “do you ever think about dying?”

Yes, this is a Barbie movie that confronts the existential fear of death (similar themes, mind you, that were explored in Baumbach’s last film White Noise, co-starring Gerwig). It’s a film that shouldn’t work, but it does, thanks in large part to the brilliant screenplay by Gerwig and Baumbach, which walks such a careful tonal balance between campy and self-aware but also earnest and sincere, that it plays as some sort of magic trick.

The Barbie world itself operates on a sort of loopy, imagination logic that explains itself as it goes along in a way that lets us simply roll with it. Barbie Land is a feat of imaginative production design, with its plasticy, practical sets modelled after actual Barbie play sets, including a life-size Barbie dream house, and the costumes by Jacqueline Durran (Oscar-winner for Little Women) are ingeniously modelled after actual doll clothes. This very pink world is wonderfully captured by Rodrigo Prieto, whose brightly lit cinematography showcases the popping colours of the artificial Barbie Land.

The casting is another area where this film succeeds, and I’m not sure it would work so well without Robbie in the leading role. She grounds the film with her portrayal of Barbie, playing her with just the right mix of innocence and curiosity as she goes on her emotional journey of self-discovery. Gosling delivers a great comic role as Ken, with a fully committed performance that keeps us engaged with the “himbo”character through his own arc. He even passionately throws himself into the film’s big musical number “I’m Just Ken” (Gerwig clearly shows her love for old musicals in crafting this sequence). Only Gosling could pull off this role so well.

Elsewhere, America Ferrera is a highlight of the supporting cast and has several great moments in the film, including one key monologue. Kate McKinnon gets some laughs as Weird Barbie (you know, the one with a badly cut hair whose legs are always doing the splits), and so does Will Ferrell playing the head of Mattel (an unlikely meta role). Rhea Perlman also elevates the film with only a few beautifully performed scenes.

This is Gerwig paying tribute to the brand that is Barbie, while also exploring bigger themes around what the doll represent for generations of women. Gerwig’s film offers a more nuanced exploration of feminist ideals, and the pressures and expectations around being a woman in a world that both expects too little and too much. On a deeper level, Barbie becomes about the realities of living in a patriarchal or heavily one-sided society, with Gerwig and Baumbach delivering a particularly clever message about the importance of equality and finding a balance between gender roles.

As funny as Barbie often is, Gerwig infuses her film with a great depth of feeling, too, exemplified in the tender Billie Eilish song “What Was I Made For.” It’s a movie filled with a surprising amount of ideas that will mean a lot of different things to a lot of people, while also offering a really great time at the movies. In short, all hail Greta Gerwig for pulling this off.

Barbie opens exclusively in theatres on July 21st.