38 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 20-26, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com MOVIES The latest film from two-time Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig, writer and director of Lady Bird and Little Women, is a live-action Mattel production, marking the first time the iconic toy has ventured beyond computer-generated home entertainment made for little girls. Barbie is not made for little girls, though it does open with them. Aping the Dawn of Man sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a group of stony-faced little girls joylessly play with boring baby dolls. Then a sky-high Barbie (Margot Robbie)—in her original 1950s black-and-white bathing suit, no less— reveals herself, and the little girls riot, drop-kicking their baby dolls in order to bend the knee to this plastic totem of womanhood, this monolith of blank, chic perfection. It is a riot—little girls going feral is inherently funny—yet I found their frenzied revolt weirdly poignant. Barbie, the toy, see-saws in the culture between extremes: Is she an aspirational figure, or the fastest way to wreck a kid’s relationship to her body? A gateway to the imagination, or a slammed door? Barbie, the movie—an exhilarating, generous, deeply handmade comedy about a mass-market product—revels in these extremes. The script, by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, establishes the parameters of this bubblegum-pink world in a zippy montage. Barbie Land is a matriarchal society, wherein Lawyer Barbie and Doctor Barbie and President Barbie, et al., are thriving, and the Kens mostly exist to look good and provide sexless companionship. (Yep, they’re all named Barbie or Ken, and the joke genuinely never gets old.) A bleach-blond Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling, perfectly hambone) pines terribly for Robbie’s Barbie, but she’s got other things on her mind: Mainly, that she’s been having very un-Barbie-like thoughts. “Do you guys ever think about dying?” she wonders aloud. Cue Barbie’s first existential crisis. That crisis sends Barbie and Ken to the real world, where Barbie starts to understand what it means to be human (crying is “achy but good”) and Ken responds giddily to his first exposure to the patriarchy. There’s also some business with the Mattel board of directors, and a subplot featuring America Ferrera, devastated by her tween daughter’s emotional distance. The fizzy disorientation of this film, the wonder over what wild shit is going to happen next (a musical number, or an interrogation of the male gaze? Both!) is electric. The movies are in an existential crisis, too. We’ll pause here to lament that a generation of filmmaking talent has seen their career trajectories constrict and that we moviegoers are only being serviced big-budget movies attached to preexisting properties—a franchise, a comic book, a video game, a toy. That said, Barbie is about as personal and idiosyncratic a creative statement as you could conjure within the studio system. Every minute of this film is serving “theater kid who went to Barnard and studied feminist theory” energy. In this film’s imagining, and manifest in Robbie’s energetic and nuanced portrayal, Barbie shares the same searching quality as Gerwig’s Lady Bird and Jo March. They are all fumbling for their purpose, their place in the world, and to feel at home in their own skin. Barbie becomes relatable, and it only took 64 years. Barbie 1/2 • Directed by Greta Gerwig • Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell • Rated PG-13 • 114 min. • Opens July 21 • At Cinemark Century Northridge (Salinas), Cinemark Century Monterey (Del Monte Center), Cinemark Century Marina, Maya Cinemas, Lighthouse Cinema (Pacific Grove), Premiere Cinemas (Soledad) Doll’s World Barbie takes the iconic toy to the screen, with a funny and thoughtful lens on its own corporate origin story. By Kimberley Jones Cue Barbie’s first existential crisis. Above: Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie in Barbie, which offers visual wit as a film. It ping-pongs between “make-believe” and “real-life,” the two-dimensional and three-dimensional (Barbie literally walks on water, one thematically rich gag). Below: Kate McKinnon plays Weird Barbie. COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES 831.200.9700 • www.gocatrescue.org KONA A spirited, affectionate “dog-like” cat, 10-yearold Kona will greet strangers at the door and invite herself right into their laps when they sit down. Adopted as a kitten in Hawaii, Kona came to the Monterey Peninsula with her family but now they are moving overseas and cannot take her along. Kona is a petite tabby who loves to snuggle any time of day and never wants to miss the party! If you’re looking for a social, friendly kitty, Kona is your girl. If you are interested in Kona, please fill out an adoption application at www.gocatrescue. org or call us at 831-200-9700. Dog Walking Join our Helping Paw volunteer walking brigade! Many senior people in our community need help walking their dogs because they can no longer provide the exercise their pups need. Offering dog walking assistance to seniors enables them and their beloved dogs to stay together longer. To get started, call us at 831-718-9122 or fill out our online volunteer application. Ad Sponsored by Judy LeRoy With Lasso If you’d like sponsor our next ad, please give us a call. 831-718-9122 | www.PeaceOfMindDogRescue.org P.O. Box 51554, Pacific Grove, CA 93950
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