Life in plastic is fantastic for the residents of Barbie Land, the vividly realised location where we spend the opening third of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Everything is perfect and everyone knows their place, but the complications of reality are beginning to seep into this fantasy. “Do you guys ever think about dying?” Barbie (Margot Robbie) suddenly blurts out during a dance number, a moment of introspection that sends her perennially pointed feet crashing to the floor and seems to knock her whole life off kilter. Yes, this Barbie is having an existential crisis, and Barbie’s screenplay, by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, sends their iconic blonde protagonist to the real world on a voyage of self-discovery.
