"Math is HARD! Let's Study Art as Social Commentary 101, Instead!"
When Greta Gerwig guested on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" she was asked this by the host, Peter Sagal: "Do you know—one of the things that happens, it seems, is that young, talented independent directors who make a successful movie on a low budget are immediately handed enormous Hollywood blockbusters. Have you picked yours?"
"Oh!" she gasped."A Hollywood blockbuster? No, I have not picked my blockbuster yet. But, when I do...get ready..."
This is not much to base a movie on. And Barbie is, after all, merchandise. My prejudice—and I confess I went in prejudiced—was this: Barbie is as important to the art of cinema as the Transformers series is. As the recent Super Mario Brothers Movie is. As important as the Lego movies are. Bottom-line, it's the bottom-line: Selling product, and Barbie the movie will push kids pushing parents into the toy-aisles at far greater numbers then before its premiere.
I just didn't think it would satiric to the point of seditious, which I must confess warmed my guiltily paternalistic, capitalist-suspicious heart.
Narrator Helen Mirren explains things to us as she relates the relationship between the Real World and the Barbie Merchi-verse. In a sequence that compares to the morning rituals of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Barbie (Margot Robbie) wakes up perfectly in her Dream-House, takes a shower (there's no water, of course, as Dream-Houses didn't), mimes brushing her teeth, has a plasticized breakfast, dresses, and floats down to her car as if being carried by an invisible hand, to greet the day and the many varying Barbies, Skippers and Midge (the discontinued pregnant one), before spending the day at The Beach, where she plays with her friends, under the ever-watchful, ever-worshipful gaze of Ken (Ryan Gosling, in a lighter mood than of late), who, as they say, covets. He has no idea why as he's a toy and has no chromosomes or hormones.
After another in a perpetual string of "girls' nights", Barbie starts noticing that things aren't so perfect: she wakes up with morning breath, the water that still doesn't come out of the shower is cold, the plastic breakfast is burned, and when she steps off her balcony to get to her car, she lands with a splat. No broken parts or joints, but when she gets to the beach, things get really "off the shelf"--taking off her high heels, instead of remaining walking on tippy-toes, her HEELS touch the ground...she has FLAT FEET!
What is happening? Barbie is supposedly perfect—she is, self-admittedly, "the original stereotypical Barbie"—and suddenly things are going wrong—"I feel sad, and mushy, and complicated"—and she even has thoughts about death. The other Barbies (and Kens) are totally grossed-out (totally!) and advise Barbie to go visit "Weird Barbie" (Kate McKinnon)—she's the one that was played with a little too hard and a little too long—because she's seen things...and she might know what is happening to our doll.
She does, of course, speculating that somehow a portal has opened up between Barbieland and the Real World*, and it has (no doubt) been caused by the Real World person playing with this Barbie, after all, "it takes two to rip a portal." Truer words were never said.
She sends Barbie on a mission to the Real World to find the little girl playing with her and existence as she knows it, and fix the rift, while also being showered with thanks by all those women who owe their wonderful lives to Barbie.
Oh, dear, this will not go well. And, she is figuratively and literally in for a world of hurt. To make matters worse, Ken has stowed-away in Barbie's C4 Barbie Corvette for the trip, although he doesn't know why, just that he has to, despite the fact that she is capable and talented and pretty enough to handle the assignment on her own. "You'll just slow me down!" she yells at Ken, without even bothering to mention that he might cause her to "settle" and derail a budding career in just about anything you can imagine for domestic bliss. Barbie's, after all, live in their own little world of accomplishment—and the movie makes the point that they don't even know where the Kens live.
But, it's a different story in The Real World, where men rule everything, can be anything they want—and women can be anything they want...at 60% the pay, and the thermostats in offices are always set for men's comfort, not women's. There's no day-care, and no parental leave, and, heck, women don't even have control of their own bodies in the eyes of the legal system, and heck, it's like they're just dolls whose job it is to please no matter the mood, and have no agency...and wait a minute, Barbie really IS in the real world!
Okay. Enough of the scenario, you might know where this is going. It's a polemic on the aspirational aspects of Barbie's play-world and the ways it differs from the reality into which those playing children will grow up. It's a satire with one eye on the world of imagination and potential and what happens when play-time is over and responsibility and irresponsibility go hand-in-fist, and life is a lot less fun. Just as hedonistic and materialistic, sure, but a lot less fun.
Credit Gerwig and Baumbach for threading the needle to make this laugh-out-loud funny and entertaining, while also making it smart, and almost too smart. There's a lot of talk of existential crises, depression-era Barbies, and prescient flashbacks ("Remember 'Proust Barbie?' Didn't sell well!") that are going to sail right over kids' heads (and some adults'), but hits a lot of sophisticated points. It tells you the Barbie movie is more aspirational in its own goals than your standard kids' movie that gets by with Saturday morning "don't be mean" social lessons. Here, it skewers stereotypical patriarchy and male egotism--which will make some adults and Ron DeSantis squirm--but, the kids will like the bright colors and the fashions and the sparkling gayness of it all (which will also make DeSantis squirm) while the parents worry about questions they'll be asked later ("I'll tell ya when yer older!").
Hey, parents, be glad there's no mention of "Barbie-heads"!
In the same way that "Rocky and Bullwinkle" skewered the Cold War 1960's while mixing in the most childish of jokes, Barbie treads (on tippy-toes!) the highly-charged issues of gender inequities and sexual politics in our "Old Man" Society, and doing it cheekily, with the knowledge that by aiming high, the kids will eventually catch up while giving the oldsters something to chew on during the ride home. Anyone wondering what audience the filmmakers were aiming for can be answered with the simple "Everyone...eventually."
And in so doing, it gives one more aspiration for little girls to fantasize about becoming: block-busting director.
Billie Eilish and Finneas do the final credits song and once again nail it.
Somehow...after the movie, that wink seems a lot more conspiratorial....
* I would point out that there is a natural barrier between Barbie-land and The Real World called the "checkout counter"...with uniformed guards!...but that would only complicate things in an already complicated scenario,
Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day. (Remember when Adam McKay made comedies?)
"Did That Go the Way You Thought It Was Gonna Go?""Nope."
or
"Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used...(what's the rest?)" "As a Flotation Device..."
More comedy, and this one's even very funny for its first half, but then, once one scene goes sideways and doesn't work, the whole thing falls apart like a hostage situation gone wrong. And the audience is the hostage, waiting for it to kick back in...but it never does.
Unperturbed, and when advancement in the ranks becomes possible, the two glom onto a white-collar crime that Gamble has discovered that has connections to a series of high-profile robberies. The mis-matched pair(Hoitz is volatile, Gamble is eerily up-beat) are completely street-dumb and their investigation is constantly being dis-railed (sometimes literally) by distractions and their lack of ability to resist the charms of their high-rolling suspect's lifestyle. Their increasing frustration with the case and each other (as well as Hoitz's relationship problems, in contrast with the milquetoast Gamble's inexplicable attractiveness to women) is fertile ground for situations that explode in conflict.
It works and works gang-busters for the first hour. The combination of loose script and improvisation is beefed up by all the actors (especially Ferrell and Michael Keaton, who does quick-silver wonders with the cliche "harried Captain" role), especially when the story is building and we're getting to know the characters. The "left-field" surprises come fast and loose, and the timing by the actors (and the editing) is crack. One senses trouble early on when Anne Heche (uncredited, by the way) is given a thankless role in which she's really not allowed to do anything funny...or much of anything. But Ferrell, for the most part, is at the top of his game playing the contrary stiff in a room full of crazies, and Wahlberg who, depending on the material, can be brilliant, plays pathetic frustration hilariously. Even Eva Mendes acquits herself well in the mix, milking laughs out of the role of Gamble's absurdly perfect wife—Gamble's sexual magnetism makes for a great series of running gags throughout the movie.
But, right at the point where Bob, the union rep, gets dissed and leaves the room, the entire movie goes flat.*** Maybe the improv was getting too expensive and they decided to "coast." Maybe the assurance of an "action-filled" finale made them scrimp on the script. Maybe the irrelevant story-line getting in the way changed the tone. Maybe everyone got tired. But, for whatever reason, The Other Guys is two movies..."Good Cop" comedy and "Bad Cop" comedy.
Interestingly, the most useful part of the movie is the end credits where the increasing disparity between the incomes of the top 1% earners and the rest of us is presented in chilling graphic detail.
* Hint: He's called "The Yankee Clipper" around the squad-room.
** What can I say? It's New York, and the Bronx Zoo is the closest they come to a peacock. Peacocks do indeed fly, but it's a brief, clumsy, scary thing to watch—which I think was the point of bringing it up in the movie.
*** It's funny I can pinpoint it, because that's where the movie became NOT funny, and I thought to myself..."Well, THAT didn't work..." and watched to my amazement as very little worked after.
It's still Hallowe'en Season, but things got so dark this week, I felt the need to lighten up with this one.
But, be warned: Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day (a spot easy to fill with sub-par Horror movies), so one should take caution. I can watch an old early episode of "Bewitched" and be amazed at how solid it is as entertainment. Nicely written, too. But, the movie version...makes me want to twitch my nose if only to make it go away in a puff. So much potential with a good cast. Better to watch I Married a Witch, I think. Or the old television series.
This was written at the time of the film's conjuring.
Bewitched(Nora Ephron, 2005) The all-star movie version of the TV classic "Bewitched" left me bothered and bewildered.
Yeah, yeah. Cute line and all that, but essentially true; How on God's green Earth could Ephron and her sister-conspirator in this crime have screwed up a sure thing like "Bewitched?" The show, which debuted on ABC in the early 60's was fairly inspired for the first four years, then ran on auto-broom for the rest of its run, largely on the spell of star Elizabeth Montgomery's spunkiness, and an ever-decreasing number (due to age and death) of eccentric co-stars. It may seem like stretching the social point a bit, but "Bewitched" was a flighty, goofy examination of the trials of a "mixed" marriage (she's a witch from a long lineage of witches and he's just a normal guy)...without risking the wrath of any of the Southern States!*
And on top of that, despite piggish (more like ape-ish) husband Darrin's constant attempts to repress her heritage, house-witch Samantha Stevens always managed to display female empowerment, while being blithely supportive of her wage-slave husband. Like she couldn't "twitch" herself a mink coat whenever she wanted. I know an awful lot of women, who, as little girls, looked up to Samantha as a symbol of power under wise restraint, superior in all things man-world, and only able to be "super-mom" because she had what all mom's have...a touch of magic. These girls wanted to be Samantha: charming, but flinty, capable of holding all the power in the world, but only when necessary—holding the Power, but dispensing it with Wisdom.
The movie is off-balanced anyway, with more attention payed to Ferrell's narcissistic actor than to Kidman's character.*** And the revelations about certain characters are too easy and too pat. Some hipster-cred is afforded by the casting of "The Daily Show's" two Steve's: Stephen Colbert as a too-full-of-himself tv scripter, and Steve Carell as a hyper-intense Uncle Arthur (played on the series by Paul Lynde)—a part that feels like a desperation-move.
It is only at the end, when art-imitating-life-imitating art comes full-circle and begins chomping on it's own lizard-tail, and witch and human settle in for wedded bliss in the backlot-house from the series, that the potential nears the target, aided immeasurably by the casting of Richard Kind and Amy Sedaris as the prying neighbors, the Kravitz's. Then, the movie seems comfortably familiar...and funny. You know, like, if you're going to remake a TV show, why not actually re-make the TV show—only better? This movie is such a mis-fire one wonders if the series' bumbling Aunt Clara (played by the perpetually befuddled Marion Lorne) had a hand in its conjuring.
Rather than being released, this one should have been torched in the village square.
"Sam, is there some sorta hex you can put on that movie?" "We-ell..."
*Actually, it did. ABC was wary of how elements of the "occult" would go down in the Bible Belt. Fortunately, they had on their side the very religiously conservative Agnes Moorehead, who had no problems playing a satanic mother-in-law of a witch...to the hilt of her broom-handle.
** Kidman practiced the Samantha nose-twitch until she was expert at it. The secret? Montgomery never twitched her nose—she twitched her upper lip.
*** Why? The script was extensively re-written to court the actor considered to be a natural Darrin, Jim Carrey. But despite beefing up the character's worth, and providing a transformative character arc from man-child to human adult—the only substantial character arc in the movie—Carrey passed. Smart move on his part. Bad move on the producer's part, then, to keep the Carrey part as written and shoe-horn Farrell into it. They should have just rewritten the script and returned the focus to witchcraft rather than the making of a television show. Total mis-calculation. And, while we're at it, they could have made a bold move and cast a couple of their already-appearing lesser-known actors (who had yet to break out of their "Daily Show" stints) in the "Darren" part even though they didn't have any box-office cache...yet...that being Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell (Colbert was cast as a "Bewitched" crew-member and Carell played the "Paul Lynde" role of Uncle Arthur).
