Review: Revisiting ‘Barbie’ ahead of its 2024 Oscars snubbing

It’s 2023, and Barbie is cool again. The sun rises over the horizon. The hair-raising sounds of a symphony sweep over a desert landscape as she takes center stage in her original black and white striped bathing dress, blonde hair curled up in plastic perfection, arms bendable past a 90-degree angle and tiny sunglasses perched on her head. Helen Mirren’s lovely voice rains down from heaven like a gift to our ears.

Yet in 2024, “Barbie” might not be cool enough for the Academy Awards, airing on March 10. “Barbie,” released last July, has a lot of things going for it and has raked in critical and popular acclaim for months. Despite getting eight Oscar nominations, it’s been left out of the Best Actress and Best Director categories, two awards that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig, respectively, were expected to at least be nominated for.

The film, also featuring Ryan Gosling — who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor —and America Ferrera — who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress —tells the story of Barbie (Robbie) traveling from Barbie Land to the human world, leaving the picture-perfect plastic world behind to discover the dark reality of the real world.

It took me six months to get around to watching the movie, after watching the pink pilgrimage of moviegoers flock to theaters last summer from across Lake Michigan, where I was sequestered for four months on an island without any way to view it. This Barbie’s job was Island Reporter, with mainland movie theater viewing privileges sold separately.

After finally watching it over Christmas break, I was ready to watch a movie about a doll. It kind of was, but it also succeeds at being more. It’s kind of weird, but it works, with its combination of nostalgia and a devoted audience.

One of the movie’s biggest strengths is that it leans into the fact that it’s fun and kind of absurd, yet manages to juxtapose itself with more meaningful, bigger-picture zeitgeist moments. In one of its most pivotal scenes, Barbie is being chased by Will Ferrell after almost being twist-tied back into a box, before coming face-to-face with a figure we later learn is Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), the creator of Barbie, who sparks Barbie’s soul-searching endeavors and returns for some of the films most beautiful scenes.

When Barbie Land has been overrun by Kens, led by Gosling, it’s taken back with the help of Gloria’s (Ferrera) now-iconic “How hard it is to be a woman” speech. “Barbie” has a lot to say — dare I say, too much at some points, like it can’t decide between showing us and telling us its main points — but it’s also just fun.

It confronts and accepts the idea that Barbie has created unrealistic expectations for women, while at the same time saluting Barbie’s historically feminist place on toy shelves. It’s nostalgic and playful and doesn’t take itself too seriously until it does. If Stereotypical Barbie herself can recognize and break out of societal double-standards, we’re going in the right direction. It’s just a perk that the message comes packaged in sparkly pink plastic vibes. That’s how you get the social media generation obsessed with something — remember the “This Barbie is…” social media templates that had everyone from millennials to Gen Alpha in a chokehold for months?

“Barbie” is also just cinematically and technically clean and diverse. The transition scene sets, where the Barbies and guests travel to and from Barbie Land, were all made by props, not CGI. It’s just one part that makes the movie so fun to watch.

“Barbie” clearly knows its audience. I may not have played with Barbies regularly as a child, but I could easily picture the pink convertible in the desert landscape and every other mode of transportation neatly packaged on a Walmart shelf, waiting to be circled in the Kohl’s Christmas catalog.

Robbie has since publicly discussed she’s not upset about being left out of the Oscars shortlist — “There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed,” she said in a discussion with SAG-AFTRA — but director Greta Gerwig should have had her name on the list. Gerwig’s Hollywood solo directorial debut in 2017, “Ladybird,” followed by “Little Women” in 2019, quickly established her as a powerhouse filmmaker. She uses similar themes of the power of women in “Barbie,” though for a new audience with a fresher approach this time, and is incredibly successful.

It was quite the year for movies, Robbie also agreed, and the Best Director category may have been tough, but the film’s overall message rings ironically true with the snub. The irony continues with a recent announcement that Gosling has been tapped to perform “I’m Just Ken” live at the awards on top of his nomination. Which, objectively, will probably be hilarious — it just would have been better if he were performing after Gerwig’s name is announced.

For all its strengths, what really makes a movie like “Barbie” special is who you see it with. For example, I saw it with my mom, whom I’ve never seen wear pink. After pausing the movie to grab a blanket, I came down the spiral staircase to see my mom staring right at me, hastily shoved into a small pink cardigan dug from the back of her closet, last worn at my grandma’s funeral 10 years ago. We laughed together for a long time, the doubled-over kind where you can’t breathe.

The “Barbie” movie was good, but that moment with my mom made it 100 times better.