Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Emma Mackey, Alexandra Shipp, Connor Swindells, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Kingsley Ben-Adir. America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Ariana Greenblatt, Michael Cera, Hari Nef
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story:
Fantasy adventure comedy, based on the famous Mattel doll franchise, directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig. Barbie (2023) is set in a world where Barbie (Margot Robbie) breaks the tradition of girls playing with baby dolls.
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Best Quotes
Narrator: Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls. The girls who played with them could only every play at being mother. Which can be fun. At least for a while anyway. Ask your mother. This continued until…
[the young girls see a large Barbie figure in a bathing suit]
Narrator: She might have started out as just a lady in a bathing suit, but she became so much more.
Narrator: Girls can grow into women who can achieve everything and anything they set their mind to. Thanks to Barbie all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved. At least that’s what the Barbies think. After all, they’re living in Barbie Land. Who am I to burst their bubble?
Narrator: Midge was Barbie’s pregnant friend. Well let’s not show Midge actually. She was discontinued by Mattel, because a pregnant doll is just too weird.
'Why didn't Barbie tell me about patriarchy? Which, to my understanding, is where men and horses run everything?' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Lawyer Barbie: In our assessment, money is not speech and corporations have no free speech rights to begin with. So any claim on their part to be exercising their right is just their attempt to turn our democracy into a plutocracy. This makes me emotional and I’m expressing it. I have no difficulty holding both logic and feeling at the same time. And it does not diminish my powers. It expands them.
Narrator: Barbie has a great day every day. But Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.
Allan: Hi, Barbie.
Barbie: Oh, hi, Allan.
Narrator: There are no multiples of Allan. He’s just Allan.
Allan: Yeah, I’m confused about that.
Tourist Ken: Well, looks like this beach was a little too much beach for you, Ken.
Ken: If I wasn’t severely injured, I would beach you off right now, Ken.
Tourist Ken: I’ll beach off with you any day, Ken.
Basketball Ken: Anyone who wants to beach him off has to beach me off first.
Tourist Ken: I will beach both of you off at the same time.
Ken: But you don’t even know how to beach yourself off. How are you going to beach both of us off? It doesn’t make sense. You can’t even beach yourself off! You’re going to beach both of us off?!
Tourist Ken: Why are you being emotional?
Barbie: Come on, Kens. Nobody’s going to beach anyone off.
'Humans only have one end. Ideas live forever.' - Ruth (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Dr. Barbie: Great. Not even broken. You’ll be fine.
Ken: Shredding waves is much more dangerous than people realize.
Barbie: You’re very brave, Ken.
Ken: Thank you, Barbie. You know surfer is not even my job.
Barbie: I know.
Ken: And it is not lifeguard. Which is a common misconception.
Writer Barbie: Very common.
Ken: Yeah, because actually my job, it’s just beach.
Dr. Barbie: Right. And what a good job you do at beach.
Ken: Can I come to your house tonight?
Barbie: Sure. I don’t have anything big planned. Just a giant blowout party with all the Barbies, and planned choreography, and a bespoke song. You should stop by.
Dr. Barbie: This is the best day ever.
Barbie: It is the best day ever. And so was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and so was the day after tomorrow, and even Wednesdays, and every day from now until forever! Do you guys ever think about dying?
Ken: I thought I might stay over tonight.
Barbie: Why?
Ken: Because we’re girlfriend boyfriend.
Barbie: To do what?
Ken: I’m actually not sure.
'At first I thought the Real World was run by men. And then, there was a minute where I thought it was run by horses. But then I realized that horses are just men extenders.' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Barbie: I don’t even have context for this, but my feet, my heels are on the ground. I’m no longer on tiptoes.
Dr. Barbie: That’s okay. Let me see.
Dr. Barbie: [yells as Barbie shoes her feet] Flatfeet!
Barbie: I know I’m stereotypical Barbie, and therefore don’t form conjectures concerning the causality of adjacent unfolding events, but some things have been happening that might be related. Bad breath this morning. A cold shower. Burnt waffle. And falling off my roof.
Barbie: I would never wear heels if my feet were shaped this way.
Weird Barbie: What’s cooking good looking?
Weird Barbie: That Ken of yours, he is one nice looking little protein pot.
Barbie: I guess.
Weird Barbie: I’d like to see what kind of nude blob he’s packing under those jeans.
'Barbie Land is now Ken Land. And it's going to be just like Century City in Los Angeles. Because they had it all figured out in Century City.' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Weird Barbie: Now there is a rift in the continuum that is the membrane between Barbie Land and the Real World. And if you want to be stereotypical Barbie perfect again, then, baby girl, you’ve got to go fix it, or you’re going to keep going funny. Look at your upper thigh.
Barbie: What is that?
Weird Barbie: That’s cellulite. That’s going to spread everywhere. And then you’re going to start getting sad, and mushy, and complicated.
Barbie: No!
Weird Barbie: We’re all getting played with, babe.
Weird Barbie: There’s the girl, and the doll, and never the twains shall cross.
Weird Barbie: So, what will it be then? You can go back to your regular life, and forget any of this ever happened. Or you can know the truth about the universe. The choice is now yours.
Barbie: The first one. The high heel.
Weird Barbie: No. We’ll do a redo. You’re supposed to want to know.
Barbie: I don’t.
'If it weren't for these technicalities, like MBAs, medical degrees, and, I don't know, swim lessons, I could have ruled that world.' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Barbie: I’m not Adventure Barbie. I’m Stereotypical Barbie. I’m like the Barbie you think of when someone says, “Think of a Barbie.” That’s me.
Weird Barbie: I’m bummed. You’re a bummer. That’s a bummer.
Weird Barbie: You have to fix the rift yourself. Don’t blame me, blame Mattel. They make the rules.
Barbie: I don’t want too!
Weird Barbie: Fine. Get cellulite. I don’t care.
Weird Barbie: There’s actually no portal. It’s a figure of speech. It’s actually a sports car to a speedboat, to a rocketship, to a tandem bike, to a camper van, finally to a snowmobile. Which will take you most of the way to the state of Los Angeles, where you will don neon and rollerblades, and then through the country of California. Weird. I know. Best if you don’t think about it too much.
Barbie: And how do I get back?
Weird Barbie: The same way you came, but in reverse.
Barbie: Like I should move forward, but through the order backward.
Weird Barbie: Don’t overthink it.
Barbies: Bon voyage to reality, and good luck restoring the membrane that separates our world from theirs so you don’t get cellulite!
'That's life. It's all change.' - Gloria (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Tourist Ken: I bet you’re scared, and I bet she doesn’t even want you to go.
Ken: Well you bet both those things incorrectly. And I bet in the opposite direction.
Tourist Ken: Which way is that? You don’t even know.
Ken: I made a double bet with Ken, and you can’t make me look uncool in front of Ken
Barbie: Ken’s not cool!
Ken: He is to me.
Ken: What if there’s beach? You’ll need someone who’s a professional in that.
Barbie: Did you bring your rollerblades?
Ken: I literally go nowhere without them.
'I'm just so tired of watching myself, and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.' - Gloria (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Barbie: [after they arrive in the Real World] I feel kind of ill at ease. Like I don’t know the word for it, but I’m conscious, but it’s myself that I’m conscious of.
Ken: I’m not getting any of that. I feel what can only be described as “admire”. But not ogle. And there’s no undertone of violence.
Barbie: Mine very much has an undertone of violence.
Barbie: [to the construction workers] I don’t know exactly what you meant with all of those little quips, but I’m picking up on some sort of entendre, which appears to be double. And I would just like to inform you, I do not have a v***na. And he does not have a p**is. We don’t have genitals.
Ken: I have all the genitals.
Barbie: Jeez, you would think a construction site at lunchtime would be the perfect place for a little woman power. This one was so male.
'I'm just Ken. And I'm enough. And I'm great at doing stuff.' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Ken: I hate it when people think. It gets so boring.
Barbie: [as she starts to cry] That felt achy, but good.
Barbie: You’re so beautiful.
The Woman on the Bench: I know it.
'To be honest, when I found out the patriarchy wasn't about horses, I had lost interest anyway.' - Ken (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Gloria: I just started drawing these weird designs.
Aaron Dinkins: These are different.
Gloria: It’s Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie. Full Body Cellulite Barbie. Crippling Shame Barbie.
Mattel CEO: If this got out that our dolls were coming to Los Angeles from Barbie Land, as life sized versions of themselve, roaming the earth, this would be very bad. We’ve got a definite situation on our hands. Catastrophic! I can’t stress that enough!
Mattel CEO: No one rests until this doll is back in a box.
Sasha: So you’re like Barbie Barbie. Like a professional bimbo?
Barbie: No, Barbie’s not a bimbo. Barbie is a doctor, and a lawyer, and a senator, and a Nobel prize winner.
'We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they've come.' - Ruth (Barbie) Click To Tweet
Sasha: You’ve been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented.
Barbie: I think you have that the wrong way around.
Sasha: You represent everything wrong with our culture. Sexualized capitalism, unrealistic physical ideals.
Barbie: No, no, no. You’re describing something stereotypical. Barbie is so much more than that.
Sasha: You set the feminism movement back fifty years. You destroy girls innate sense of worth, and you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.
Barbie: No, I’m supposed to help you, and make you happy, and powerful.
Sasha: Oh, I am powerful. And until you showed up here, and declared yourself Barbie, I hadn’t thought about you in years, you fascist.
Ken: I’ll take a high level, high paying job with influence, please.
Corporate Man: Okay, you’ll need at least an MBA. And a lot of our people have PhDs
Ken: Isn’t being a man enough?
Corporate Man: Actually right now, it’s kind of the opposite.
Trailer: