we all knew barbie was going to be funny. we all knew it’d have something to say about the “female coming-of-age,” as all of greta gerwig’s movies have thus far. and we all knew margot robbie and ryan gosling would turn in note-perfect performances as barbie and ken. and they did.

what i didn’t know was how much barbie would mean - not truly, not fully. how much it would mean to me, to the women sitting to my left and right, to all of us. the depth and breadth of its central message was something i couldn’t have ever anticipated, despite having the utmost faith in greta gerwig at every twist and turn. and even though i’d been looking…

“I want to do the imagining, I don’t want to be the idea.”

I almost don’t want to say anything because people will think I’m “just being a hater” no matter what I say, but I couldn’t call myself a critic if I didn’t.

Unfortunately, I found this movie to be as hollow as the plastic dolls that inspired it. 

Every scene in this script tries to convince you that it’s saying something important about gender, sexism, humanity. But it does so in such an immature and coarse manner that it ends up feeling disingenuous if not straight up satirical.

It sacrifices depth in favour of cheap humour, and character development for an overextended gag that never quite reaches its…