Barbie

One of the most anticipated movies of the past year, director Greta Gerwig’s subversive comedy fantasy Barbie—starring Margot Robbie as the Mattel doll—is finally here, and it triggers a truly radical thought: Ken has stolen the film. That may not have been what Gerwig, Mattel or Warner Bros. had in mind with this bright-pink extravaganza, but Ryan Gosling is flawlessly funny as the plastic male who exists only as a sort of chaste, chisel-chested consort to Barbie. In Barbie’s heady but over-intellectualized script (by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach), Ken tags along when Barbie journeys to real-world Los Angeles. Dressed in a cowboy uniform that suggests either Toy Story’s Woody or Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, he learns that men still seem to hold most of the power, and returns to Barbie Land with visions of establishing a new patrimonial order.

Now favoring a faux fur coat that makes him look like a surfer pimp, he moves into Barbie’s Dreamhouse and reduces the whole Barbie line to subservient, man-obliging nitwits who don’t mind pretending to enjoy a mansplained screening of The Godfather.

Genres:Comedy

Director:Greta Gerwig

Cast:Margot Robbie, Simu Liu, Ryan Gosling, Helen Mirren, Ariana Greenblatt