I know, I know. It’s December. But I never wrote about Barbie and it feels like an important movie and, let’s be real, cultural moment. Pink outfits, posing in Barbie boxes, Barbenheimer. And all that hype originally made it kind of tough for me to sort out my feelings about the movie itself. I really liked it upon leaving the theater, happy that it at least met the hype surrounding it and wasn’t a bad movie, but now that some time has passed, I have some thoughts. Let’s talk plot first.

All is not right in Barbie World, a plane where all Barbies and Kens have, up until recently, lived in tranquil, feminist peace. But when Barbie starts getting hit with random human feelings, like pondering death (and having flat feet—audible gasp!!), she sets out on a quest to discover what (or who!) might be causing these changes, whether they’re good or bad, and what to do about them. This requires a trip into the Human World, where things are noticeably less shiny—and less female-empowered—than the world that she is so used to. Along for the ride, and starting to have his own questions, is her sidekick Ken, who may be taking in some of his own insights from the Real World.

First of all, let’s address the fact that this movie kind of presents a no-win scenario. Squeezing the cult of the Barbie doll into a film had to mean either leaning into the idea of the toy from a child’s perspective, or leaning into all of the complexities that come from viewing the doll from an adult’s perspective (nostalgia, archaic gender stereotypes, capitalism, etc.). The fact that Mattel allowed Gerwig to embrace the latter is nothing short of miraculous, but in having to execute that vision comes a litany of complexities and sometimes contradictions. The idea of Barbie not being able to exist without her counterpart of Ken, for one; the choice to include original inventor Ruth Handler; and the attempt to address all people’s perspectives on Barbie was a lot. For what it’s worth, I think Gerwig did everything as gracefully as anyone else would be able to, in choosing to tell this story the way she did, but I also think…months after viewing…the story that I remember the most is actually Ken’s.

This is not to say that the Barbie story is bad. It’s not. But it’s so complex and existential that Ken’s nonsense is a welcome breath after processing Barbie’s experience in the real world (something all us women have to do every damn day). Barbie’s confusion, anxiety, and depression being played completely straight by human-angel Margot Robbie (and even addressing it, breaking the fourth wall) leaves an all-too-familiar taste in the mouth. And the reality of voicing women’s struggles to snap the other Barbie’s out of their patriarchal zombie-mode is at once validating and depressing. Barbie’s journey is like watching a girl go through adolescence (something maybe Gerwig does on purpose, in thinking about the movie’s chosen conclusion), wrapped up in bubblegum pink dressing. And not like that message isn’t important…but who among us would choose to go through puberty again?

Again, again, again…it’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. It’s actually done incredibly well. But…well, let’s talk about Ken.

Even now, I keep waffling on whether it would be possible to do a Barbie movie without Ken. For the story they chose to tell about Barbie herself traveling to the Real World and trying to reconcile her experience of Barbie World, maybe it would’ve been more powerful (albeit probably less marketable) without the tempered nonsense from the various Kens of the movie. Even the mysterious tagline of the movie: “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” It hinges on the fact that Barbie and Ken are a pair, but honestly what girl among us really gave a rat’s ass about getting a Ken doll at all? The choice to include Ken kind of ekes away at the women’s empowerment message, if not simply for the fact that the Kens get to have way more fun.

On that note, may I just say that Ryan Gosling completely steals this entire movie. Seriously. Why has he not played comedic roles before??? His dedication to being the goofy sidekick and his effectiveness as a comedic lead, ends up being way more fun than Barbie’s existential crisis. And not just Gosling, but all of the Ken lines are the most quotable (“What if there’s beach?!”), the Kens are the only ones who get songs, and they act like unsupervised kids throughout the entire movie. Again, I’d like to note that this is probably on purpose. After all, if all the Barbie women are responsible, powerful, and mature, it stands that the Kens can basically do whatever they want and just have fun (I’ll let you make your own real-world metaphors here). But it’s unfortunate that their adventures end up being so much more fun to watch. In admitting that women always have to fight for what they need, the movie sets up the Barbies to have to do just that all over again to get Barbie World back to functional. In the meantime, the Kens get to be unsupervised man-children, all set up in their mojo-dojo-casa-houses, singing their Matchbox 20 songs.

Sigh. This was a long one and I clearly have a lot of feelings. But I think it’s tough to make a seamless feminist manifesto out of a capitalistic, patriarchal product; nostalgia notwithstanding.

7 outa 10.