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So, girls, David and I saw "Barbie" yesterday. He hated it. I loved parts of it, and the movie was really going someplace in the first forty-five minutes, but then it loses its structural compass.
Meaning that when the film makes the fatal mistake of leaving Barbie Land, a place where all things are Barbie, everyone is Barbie, and everything is pink, and joyous and wonderful that this viewer hoped the movie would be eternally this, but no! Barbie has to be plunked down in the Real World, here represented by Los Angeles, and from that point, who cares??????????????
Not to mention Ryan Gosling is the gayest Ken, yet the most sexless Ryan I have ever seen. Not one ounce of sex appeal does Gosling suggest. Even Margot Robbie projects a kind of wholesome Fifties sexuality.
Great as the early part of the film is, it cannot save it. Although the costumes and set design in these sequences are Oscar worthy.
Poor Greta Gerwig. After 2019's superb "Little Women," this was a real letdown. Apparently, what she did not understand was that the audience wanted to escape the Real World, rather than live in it, which is bad enough for all of us to do, anyway. I wanted to remain in Barbie Land forever.
Obviously, this is something Gerwig never realized. Despite its top grosses this weekend, Gerwig could stand to lose potential Barbie lovers and those yearning for some Gay Camp.
Gerwig seems wanting to create a fun movie, but ends up taking all the fun out of it!
4 comments:
Your review summed up, that of what my fear would be concerning this movie.
Mistress Maddie.
I really had hoped it would be better.
How disappointing.
Being familiar with the trajectory of Greta Gerwig's career, I was flabbergasted that the entertainment press could possibly expect "Barbie" would be a fun summer movie. Like, AT ALL. The woman is utterly humorless, as either an actress or director.
Her directing style is heavily influenced by her spouse Noah Baumbach, the most overrated pompous indie director who ever picked up a camera in New York City. He (and his media cheering squad) seem to think his every frame is a reincarnation of Woody Allen in the "Annie Hall" era, but what he actually inflicts on us over and over again is Woody Allen's "Interiors' (without the unintentional laughs).
Greta Gerwig is Noah Baumbach with a clunky veneer of post-modern-yet-regressive feminism. The entire premise of Barbie is "world in 2023 is ruled by evil patriarchy, must restore matriarchy and put men in cages where they can't hurt anything". Somebody should tap Greta on the shoulder and tell her this theme was handled far more compelling in the 1974 Diana Muldaur classic "Planet Earth" (in half the running time).
Yet poor deluded Ryan Gosling is walking around telling people he thinks he'll get an Oscar nom for playing Ken, SMH. At least the wonderful Margot Robbie got a huge opening weekend, which she desperately needed at this point in her career. She favors challenging parts in odd little movies, but to continue doing that she must headline a massive popular hit every couple years. She hasn't had one since the first "Suicide Squad" in 2016.
Glad she has one now, tho I think word of mouth will kill the box office on this stinker within a week or two. Absolutely nobody attracted to the idea of a live-action Barbie movie was anticipating a two and a half hour misandrist polemic (pity the poor preteen girls at the 90 minute mark, when they realize theres still another hour and twelve minutes of "Ken is a tool" tedium to go).
My Dear,
As I said, David hated it. The first 45 minutes were good but went down from there. I would love to see "Planet Earth" just for Diana Muldaur. Abd who knew Ryan Gosling could be so sexless? Even the real Ken doll was hotter than he.
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