Barbie, the most highly-anticipated movie of the year, is released in Australia on Thursday, July 20, so we’ll finally get to know whether or not it’s worth all the buzz.
However, for those of who can’t wait any longer, early reviews of the film have been doing the rounds on the internet – and it’s a mixed bag of yays and nays.
Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, the film begins with Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) having a typical perfect day in Barbie Land. She gets ready with a touch of a button and doesn’t eat or clean because in her pretty pink world, everything just functions.
That is until one of her doll friends questions their way of life and suddenly life in plastic isn’t so fantastic anymore and Barbie plunges into an existential crisis.
Deadline writes that director Greta Gerwig and co-writer by Noah Baumbach strike the perfect “balance comedy, commentary and camp”.
“The writing duo managed to state their values with the right amount of levity and camp so that it doesn’t distract from the film’s message, which is all about finding yourself and finding balance,” the publication states.
“In essence, Barbie is a film that challenges the viewer to reconsider their understanding of societal norms and expectations. While it may be centred on a plastic entity, it is very much a film about the human condition — our strengths and our flaws.”
The Washington Post have described the film as a “candy-coloured confection of knowing humour and bitter irony”.
“The zaniness of Barbie, combined with Gerwig’s interest in skewering the patriarchy, sometimes makes the movie a baggy, tonally dissonant viewing experience,” reads the review. “But for the most part, she achieves a pleasing balance between the silly and the serious; she makes sure to pay homage to some of Barbie’s most cherished accessories and costumes, all the while keeping up a running commentary on sexism, objectification, consumerism and the double-triple-quadruple bind in which women have historically been forced to navigate the world — while wearing attractive heels.”
Meanwhile, The Guardian UK gave the film just three stars, insisting the “bubblegum-fun-cum-feminist-thesis” trips “between satire and advert”.
“This movie is perhaps a giant two-hour commercial for a product, although no more so than The Lego Movie, yet Barbie doesn’t go for the comedy jugular anywhere near as gleefully as that,” the outlet writes.
“It’s entertaining and amiable, but with a softcore pulling of punches: lightly ironised, celebratory nostalgia for a toy that still exists right now.”
The Sun UK was not as kind, awarding the film just three stars. Although the outlet gave Robbie the thumbs up for her “perfect” casting as the famed Mattel doll, the rest of the film did not deliver.
“Sadly, no amount of clever marketing can help this hot-pink mess of a movie,” reads the review. “The chaotic story, directed by Greta Gerwig, starts in Barbieland, a slightly unnerving, sickly sweet Utopia where Barbies of all different shapes and sizes rule the world.”
“What follows is a hamster wheel of relentless identity crises, musical numbers, tears, tantrums, bland feminist speeches, questionable acting from the huge cast.”
TheNew York Post was also unrelenting, calling the film “lousy”.
“To almost quote the Aqua song: Life in plastic — not fantastic. Barbie is an exhausting, spastic, self-absorbed and overwrought disappointment,” they claimed.
The publication believes Gerwig “churned out a smug tale” that doesn’t have one “sympathetic character”.
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“The writing, across the board, is lazy. Gerwig and Baumbach’s script doesn’t need to be plausible. It’s about Barbies, for God’s sake,” the review concludes.
“But every time it takes a bonkers narrative leap, somebody cracks a joke about what’s happened as if the viewer is a cultureless rube to ever question the film’s logic.”
Barbie is in cinemas Thursday, July 20.
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