I’m a couple of weeks late to the party, and what a couple of weeks they have been! Coming out of COVID, we had two certified “The Movies are Back!” blockbusters in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick. But we really had not had a huge cultural moment in the movie world…until now. The twin openings of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer truly took the entertainment world by storm. Prior to their opening, no two movies had ever each grossed more than $80 million in the same opening weekend. Barbie’s domestic opening of $155 million and Oppenheimer’s $82 million led to the fourth biggest box office weekend of all time (behind the two Avengers Infinity Saga movies and Star Wars: The Force Awakens). Together, they cleared half a billion dollars worldwide in three days. And, to make it all the better, they are both very good movies. So let’s review them both. We’ll start with the pink-painted juggernaut that is Barbie.

For a movie based on a toy, Barbie‘s storyline is a doozy. As we learn from Helen Mirren’s opening narration, the Barbies (and that’s essentially every Barbie model that’s ever been manufactured by Mattel) live in Barbieland, a place where all of the various Barbies run every facet of the society–law, politics, business, medicine, and so on–with all the girl-powered verve an inspired young girl can imagine. Along with all the Barbies are the Kens, who are essentially the Barbies’ boy-toys who all seem to be employed at their job of “beach.” We quickly focus on “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), the embodiment of the original Barbie, and her days of eating make-believe meals, taking make-believe showers, hanging out with the girls, and tolerating her boyfriend, “and Ken” (Ryan Gosling)–so named because it’s always “Barbie and Ken.”

Things are at their typical levl of awesom…at least for the Barbies…until Stereotypical Barbie (who I’m just gonna call “Barbie” from here on out, okay?) asks if anybody else ever thinks about death. From that point on, Barbie delves deep into an existential crisis and her world turns upside down–cold fake showers, burned fake toast, and her feet turn flat. Through the counsel of “Weird Barbie” (SNL’s Kate McKinnon)–that Barbie whose hair has been cut and face colored with marker because she was “played with too hard”–Barbie discovers that she needs to leave Barbieland to go to the real world and find the little girl who owns her to fix whatever has happened. She and stowaway Ken heads to Venice Beach to find Sasha (Avengers: Infinity War‘s Ariana Greenblatt), a cynical teen with too many similarities to a Bratz doll, who wrecks Barbie with many of the caustic criticisms many have directed toward the Barbie doll. She decides to go to Mattel, where the CEO (Will Ferrell) promises everything will be okay if she just gets back in the box. She doesn’t, instead fleeing back to Barbieland, and weirdness ensues. Almost of that weirdness is because Ken, who, in an absolutely brilliant sequence in Century City, has discovered that, in the real world, it’s the men whose lives are awesome because of “patriarchy” (which he knows has something to do with trucks and horses). Barbie, along with Sasha and her mother, Gloria (Superstore’s America Ferrara), have to set everything right. But, even as she tries to do that, Barbie–having experienced reality–wrestles with figuring out what is right for her.

Barbie is wonderful because it works on numerous levels. First, it’s just really funny. Trust me, the phrase “Mojo Dojo Casa House” and the exclamation “Sublime!” will evoke a laugh every time you think of them. Most of the laughs come from Gosling’s way over-the-top embrace of Ken’s himbo-ness and Gerwig and writing/life partner Noah Baumbach’s understanding of the minutest parts of the world of the Barbie doll as well as sixty years’ worth of pop culture details. You laugh…a lot.

Second, the movie really does have some really interesting insights into human nature. Much of the commentary about Barbie–pro and con–has been about its views on sex roles, feminism, and masculinity. That stuff is there and it’s obvious, but that’s not where the best insights comes from. I kept thinking that discourse was on the level of an undergraduate sociology seminar. But, when you think that Barbieland is a world where the residents are being played with by girls in the real world, the understanding of real life concepts like patriarchy and feminism are going to be underdeveloped, as if filtered through a steady diet of TikTok videos. The lack of nuance is the point.

The really interesting insights into humanity in Barbie come from Barbie’s interactions with the real world. The real world does its best to crush her spirits: “Everything is backwards here. Girls hate me. And I keep getting arrested!” But Barbie finds so much good in some of the smallest things, from the flowers and trees to an old woman who shares a park bench with her. It’s these moments of beauty–real beauty, not the manufactured, plastic beauty of Barbieland–which is compelling to her, leading her to question whether her previous existence can ever be real enough for her anymore.

These scenes, and the emotional weight of Barbie attempting to resolve issues of who she really is and what her life should be, all work because of the third truly great thing about Barbie: Margot Robbie’s amazing performance. Gosling and McKinnon seem to be getting all of the buzz for their excellent performances. But Robbie is truly the star here, and not in character name only. “Barbie” is a doll, but Robbie’s Barbie in the real world is a joyously and painfully real persona who has to find out what it means to be a person. She plays the role so beautifully through a wide range of emotions–confusion, delight, despair, and confidence. She was already a star, but after a couple of disappointments last year (Amsterdam and Babylon, anyone?), it’s wonderful to see her at the top of her game.

I don’t know that I need to encourage anyone to see Barbie. Everyone is seeing Barbie. But I do hope that, when you do, you see through the fun and the trappings of the world of Barbie to find those same quiet, beautiful moments of reality that Robbie’s Barbie finds.

As I’m sure you know, Barbie is in theaters now.

(Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)