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BARBIE – Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
If you had told me a year ago that one of the most talked-about and controversial films of 2023 would be one based on a child’s toy from the 1950s I would have scarcely believed you, but here we are, and Barbie is probably going to be remembered as one of the cinematic cultural touchstones of the year. The film is, of course, inspired by the enormously popular line of dolls manufactured by American toy company Mattel, and usually something like this would not interest me in the slightest – there have been Barbie movies before, animated ones, soulless and vapid affairs – but in the hands of writer/director Greta Gerwig and her co-writer husband Noah Baumbach, this version of Barbie has become a feminist story aimed squarely at Millennials and members of Gen-Z, while also becoming a political football for both the left and right wings, with one half praising it for its progressiveness, and the other half accusing it of ruining everything with ‘wokeness’. Read more…
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