Barbie

L’exploration du monde réel par les personnages issus du monde de Barbie est intéressante, originale et laisse augurer d’une satire intelligente, fraîche et inédite des pseudo-problèmes de la société (occidentale) contemporaine. Mais le « conflit des sexes » qui s’ensuit et la solution puérile à laquelle le film a recours gâchent tout le potentiel de ce qui précède. Dommage. Même l’équilibre entre un divertissement pour enfants et pour adultes ne fonctionne pas : il ne s’agit pas du tout ici d’un film pour enfants. Mais réjouissons-nous qu’après la pandémie, le public revienne en nombre dans les salles de cinéma. Pour cela, on peut remercier Barbie. Et bravo à l’auteur de l’idée marketing géniale du « Barbenheimer », même si l’équipe qui travaille dur autour de Tom Cruise ne méritait pas que M:I-7 s’en trouve ainsi éclipsé. (16/08/2023)

I didn't fall for it. At its very core, Barbie is as shallow and superficial as what it mocks all along. I can totally see the brainstorming sessions between the Mattel and Warner Brothers executives, in roundtables similar to the one Will Ferrell had in the film: "Hey, we need to boost the sales of our rubber dolls, how about we make some seemingly socially critical pulp fiction, wrap it in basic lessons about the workings of the patriarchy and the status of women in society, and just take a little dig at our corporation on the side to make it look self-aware to the naysayers of our product line.... ". Well, what comes out of a corporation making fun of corporatist? Yes, just corporate toothless humor, created on commission, and made to answer to those at the top who pay for it. PS: I'll slap two stars, for the opening (really funny) reminiscence of A Space Odyssey and then for the brief scene where Margot tells a naturally aged woman that she's beautiful. That's what the Botox princesses, led by Nicole Kidman, should be playing in a loop to light up their barbie heads. (13/12/2023)

In terms of experience, it’s five stars. It's a riveting, visually stunning, imaginative, fun ride with a fabulous Margot Robbie and an even more fabulous Ryan Gosling. It's a pleasure to see a big-budget film that totally breaks away from the uniform grey that blockbuster Hollywood usually offers today. But the voice of reason complains timidly about the script's underdeveloped supporting (human) characters and the sometimes annoyingly literal feminist cannonade in the final act, when it seems as if they wanted every argument they could think of to be heard. So, four stars. (19/07/2023)

Definitely a Meta film, a great financial success, playful and clever filmmaking, with an excellent Robbie and Gosling, great dance numbers and songs, good philosophical musings to ponder, enjoyable cameos and an originally conceived world. A few things are annoying and cringeworthy, but I surprisingly enjoyed it. The best part is definitely Barbie's trip to our world – it's a shame they don’t spend more time, as there were a few humorous interludes – but the patriarchy in Barbie's world had its moments too. Hard to rate, I don't need to see it again, but it entertained me. 65% (26/09/2023)

My daughter recently told me she was absolutely pink with joy that I took her to the playground. That phrase kept coming back to me as I watched this film, because it is essentially about the loss of joy, but pretends to be about something else. It's not grim philosophy, but a terribly simple and basic petty battle of the sexes. The sequence of sketches and funny scenes works well, including the great cast. The finale, however, is all about the fact that from a certain point onwards, the pink joy disappears and I'll have to watch it live, unable to do anything about it. (06/08/2023)

Barbenheimer, part 1. For the future of movie theaters, it's a blessing. In the current era of professional strikes, post-Covid suffering, and the domination of streaming services, two summer premieres have turned into a contrasting event that appeals to a wide spectrum of audiences. Professionals are slowly realizing that black-and-white / banal targeting of content to specific audiences like men / women / children is ending. Everyone goes to see Barbie wearing pink, and those who didn't sleep during lectures know how the relationship to this color has changed over the past hundred years (and will continue to change). Globally, this is a phenomenon over half a century old, so it is not surprising that Barbie has a large percentage of adult fans after 64 years, while children are just beginning to discover her. At the same time, it is the first live-action film after the era of 40 cartoons for the VHS, TV, and VOD market, so that is also a reason to celebrate. The soundtrack is pleasant, although some tracks make sense only after watching the movie. So what is the final film like? The trailers revealed a really large number of ideas, the style and humor were unveiled, and it seemed that there was not much left. Fortunately, smart marketing fooled us, and the film actually offers an additional message, and it is not just a showcase of how Greta Gerwig tried to reconstruct 30 classic motifs from the history of cinema, but it has emotional depth. Barbie's encounter with reality is unexpectedly brutal, just like Ken's journey toward patriarchy. The whole story is conceived as a fantasy quest spiced up with elements of a classic musical. And surprisingly, it works. What is the proof for something like this? Some feminist analysts are already dizzy from it all. I can't wait for Barbie according to Kate McKinnon to come out and proudly display her next to Malibu Stacy and Cynthia. If you're interested in the real world of Mattel, I highly recommend the documentary Tiny Shoulders, Rethinking Barbie (2018). (26/07/2023)

Heaps of creative ideas and social commentary that after half an hour feels like out of a machine-gun, and the rest of the running time is just recycled. Moreover, Barbie is too shrill and dramatically inconsistent. After an hour, I wished it would end. The acting is unsurprisingly good, at times funnily accurate in reflecting the problems of contemporary society, but I don't quite get the commercial success and worldwide hype around Barbie. (02/12/2023)

It's cute, it's funny and smart, it looks and sounds beautiful, but I felt like I'd seen it before. Rather than the copycat of The Lego Movie that the trailer smacked of, Barbie ends up reminding me of a run-of-the-mill but still more than good Pixar film. But I really like the campaign around the film, which for the first time in a long time (at least where I live, anyway) managed to get a lot of people excited about going to the cinema wearing something pink, from a baseball cap to a bathrobe, and just go have fun. That's good. (29/07/2023)

J'avais presque l'impression d'être dans la peau d'Alex DeLarge dans Orange mécanique quand ils le font asseoir dans la salle de cinéma et se mettent à le bombarder de scènes choisies. C'est un peu la torture du waterboarding mais avec des couleurs pastel. Un supplice. (11/12/2023)

It's remarkable that even though Barbie is such a phenomenon, it wasn't until 2023 that a live-action film version arrived in cinemas, after dozens of animated films. But maybe there was a reason for that: does the iconic doll have the potential to pull off a feature film? Greta Gerwig created a colourful world full of different characters, which at times evokes the work of Wes Anderson, and cast some pretty big names in the main and supporting roles. I saw the trailers and wondered if they had prepared a surprise for the audience, and (unfortunately) they didn't. Barbie's message is clear and very bluntly delivered, and by the end of the film, I found the literalness annoying – it was as if they had given up on the audience reading between the lines and just threw everything, including footnotes and explanatory notes, onto their plates. From an audiovisual point of view, this is a film that stands out all the more in the cinema, and the scene with Barbie's "mother", Ruth Handler, was truly magical. But the film is tripped by its over-underestimation of the viewer's perception - at times I felt as if I was watching a visual supplement to a textbook on feminism, patriarchy, prejudice and stereotypes. (22/07/2023)

1er visionnage : Barbie correspondait à mon humeur du jour, même si n'importe quoi aurait fait l'affaire pour me changer les idées. Je ne savais pas à quoi m'attendre et, comme beaucoup, j'imaginais autre chose. Le film m'a donné l'impression d'une collection d'éléments de qualité qui, une fois assemblés, sonnent faux et ne fonctionnent pas. Le mélange des genres et les changements de rythme fréquents n'ont décidément pas aidé. Margot Robbie et Ryan Gosling ont fait un sans faute et ont joué superbement. Par contre, je ne peux pas associer Greta Gerwig à Barbie aussi facilement qu'à Lady Bird, que j'ai beaucoup aimé. Comme l'écrit le magazine Reflex, espérons au moins qu'Hollywood nous sauvera – par contre, le coup marketing « Barbenheimmer » me plaît beaucoup. Et je me demande si le souvenir de Barbie restera à jamais associé dans ma mémoire au fait que j'avais les jambes de la charmante Veronica Biasiol à hauteur du regard, laquelle était assise sur les marches à côté de mon siège lors de l'avant-première... 2e visionnage : Je n'avais certainement pas l'intention de revoir Barbie, mais ma fille de six ans a insisté, malgré mes arguments rationnels lui expliquant que ce film n'était pas vraiment destiné aux fillettes de six ans. J'ai fini par me laisser convaincre et, maman ne voulant pas y aller, c'est papa qui s'y est collé. Mais pour finir, je ne regrette pas. Les éléments qui ne fonctionnaient pas bien ensemble lors du premier visionnage se sont mieux combinés cette fois-ci. J'ai remarqué plus de détails, de références et d'idées que je n'avais pas saisis la première fois. Margot et Ryan étaient encore meilleurs et, de plus, j'avais oublié de mentionner ce cher Michael Cera qui, à travers son rôle très secondaire, aborde la tradition sous un angle original. Je souhaite à Barbie tout le succès du monde, mais il faut aussi que je me penche sur le cas Oppenheimer. (10/08/2023)