Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2023
#7. Barbie

All hail Greta Gerwig, queen of the coming-of-age film!

The writer-director’s first two movies explored young women finding their place in the world, in early 2000s Sacramento (Lady Bird) and Civil War-era Massachusetts (Little Women). Both are masterpieces, and both are on my list of the ten best films of the previous decade.

Now, with Barbie, Gerwig has tackled her favorite subject matter in a far different context: a big-budget blockbuster produced by a toy company. And somehow she still manages to deliver a touching look at a character discovering what it means to be a woman and a human being.

Barbie has become so tied up in discourse that it’s hard to see the movie beneath. It’s the $1.5 billion grossing juggernaut that saved movies and had legions of fans attending their screenings in pink. But it’s another example of corporate product placement infiltrating the cinema at the expense of genuine art.

It’s been dismissed as a woke-fest by the right and as insufficiently feminist by the left. It became the center of tedious “Oscar snub” debate when Gerwig and star Margot Robbie were left out of the Best Director and Best Actress categories.

Cut through all the noise and you’re left with a movie that earned its blockbuster status through amazing visuals, terrific performances, big laughs, and a huge amount of heart. And if you can sometimes see the edges of the metaphorical Mattel-sized box Gerwig was working within, it’s still a minor miracle that she was able to deliver something this sharp.

For all of Barbie‘s humor (this was the funniest movie I saw all year), the moments that stick with me the most are the ones that put a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. Like when Barbie sits at a bus stop watching people live their lives before having a moment of true connection with the older woman sitting beside her. Or when she locks eyes with America Ferrara’s Gloria for the first time. And certainly when she makes the decision to become a human being, and Gerwig serves up a montage of girls and women (family members of her crew, as it turns out).

That climactic moment is scored to Billie Eilish’s hauntingly beautiful ‘What Was I Made For?,’ a song that should (and better) win an Oscar in a couple of weeks. The video for the song at the bottom of this post highlights Barbie‘s most touching moments. It’s a brilliant tribute to a brilliant film.