Barbie (2023)
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but here we go: I genuinely like Barbie. I, a 37-year-old man, sat down, watched it, and came out the other side having had a proper good time. I even quite like Ken, which is a sentence I genuinely never anticipated typing in my lifetime. But there it is.
Now, I want to be honest, because that's kind of the whole point of this blog: it doesn't start well, at least not for me. Those opening minutes had me tensing up. I was bracing for a lecture, the sort of heavy-handed, unrelenting finger-wagging that assumes you haven't thought about any of this before and intends to correct that in the bluntest way possible. And for a little while, it felt like that's exactly where Greta Gerwig was taking us. But then something shifts. The film finds its footing, loosens up, and starts trusting both itself and its audience a bit more. Once that happens, it's a genuinely clever, funny, and at times surprisingly moving piece of work.
Margot Robbie is fantastic in the lead role, all surface-level perfection with real vulnerability underneath, and the supporting cast is brilliant across the board. I'll also say it was an absolute delight to spot a handful of familiar faces from Sex Education popping up throughout. A lovely little unexpected touch that made me grin. But look, let's not dance around it: Ryan Gosling is the showstealer, full stop. I've enjoyed him in plenty of things before, quiet and restrained stuff like Drive (2011) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), but this is a completely different gear. His Ken is genuinely hilarious. The moment his character becomes self-aware and starts drinking in all the worst parts of real-world male ego culture, Gosling pitches it absolutely perfectly. It's a biting, sharp caricature of the modern manosphere wrapped up in neon-pink plastic and performed with complete comic commitment. He never winks at the camera. He plays it straight, and that's exactly why it works so well.
The film is clearly operating as social commentary throughout, taking aim at gender dynamics, equality, and the way patriarchal structures damage everyone caught inside them, men included, though perhaps not in the ways men are used to hearing about. It handles those ideas with more intelligence and wit than I feared it would, weaving them into the comedy rather than stopping the whole thing dead to make sure you've understood the point.
The finale, though, is where things get genuinely touching, and also where I felt most aware of the fact that I was not exactly the primary intended audience. There's an emotional core to the conclusion that I suspect hits a lot harder for women than it does for men. Watching it, I got this distinct feeling of being a respectful, appreciative guest at someone else's party rather than the host. And honestly? I'm completely fine with that. More than fine, actually. Good films can do that. They can make you feel the edges of your own experience and show you something outside it without shutting you out entirely. Barbie does that.
It stumbles out of the gate, and if you bounce off those early scenes, I'd ask you to stick with it a bit longer before making your mind up. Because once it settles into what it actually wants to be, it delivers something that's funny, sharp, surprisingly heartfelt, and a lot smarter than its detractors would have you believe.
Three and a half stars.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-06-15
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · HBO Max
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · TNT · TBS · tru TV
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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