To continue our chat about blockbuster films this week, I asked two of the best movie watchers I know to share their SPOILER-FREE reviews of the instantly iconic Barbenheimer films (Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer for those of us who pay rent to live under rocks).
First, returning E4P superstar Alex Hinnant wrote about a few of his favorite high notes from Barbie:
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Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a house party that never gets a noise complaint. It’s a never-ending daydream brimmed with vibrance and white-toothed tenants.
Gerwig assigns an unexpected dynamic duo, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the honorable task of taking on the psyche of America’s most beloved toys, Barbie and Ken.
Perhaps the most incredible element of Gerwig’s genius is her ability to have her actors perform as if it were the role they were born to play. Gosling delivers an inspired love letter to Ken, detailing the boundless reward upon realizing his place in society is juxtaposed by the inability to form an identity outside of relishing in it all.
His perfect on-screen partner in crime to Barbieland and back, Margot Robbie, reminded all of us what it feels like to truly be human. When the curtains pull back, and all you have is the idea of what you’re supposed to be and nothing of your own. Where could you belong if you only just realized who you are and what the world is made of?
Assessing themes of womanhood, gender expectations, and rigid existentialism, Gerwig remains poignant and relatable. In a way that doesn’t feel memorized or recited but truly felt, America Ferrera delivers the crescendo to an audience of dolls who only now understand how cruel the world can be.
With patience and grace for new listeners with broken hearts and shattered worlds, she explains the impractical nature of being a woman. The endless list of rules and adherence is always too far out of reach. If only they could be everything and everyone without tiring, without everything being their fault if they stray too far to one side or the other.
If even a doll struggles to find her self-worth and reason to float through the world, we’re all a little more human than we thought.
Go see this movie if you have ever felt you didn’t have a place in the universe.
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Next, Skylar Corby comes back for a four-peat to discuss her favorite elements of Oppenheimer:
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I, like many people across the country last weekend, participated in one of the greatest cultural moments of our generation thus far: the double feature of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Dramatic? Yes, maybe, but as a young adult, there have been few instances in my recollection—especially since COVID—that I’ve seen this many people be this excited about one common thing, and it brought me immense joy to be a part of.
Going into the weekend, I thought Barbie would be my runaway favorite of the two, and unsurprisingly, I LOVED it. I wasn’t, however, expecting to enjoy Oppenheimer quite as much as I do. We’re talking about a three-hour, dense, dark, gradual historical drama biopic by Christopher Nolan—not necessarily in line with movies I’d generally gravitate towards. Somehow, though, it feels like one of the most astounding pieces of cinema I’ve seen in recent history.
Perhaps some of that has to do with the history itself being enrapturing, and me not having been aware of all of it, but the most thrilling thing to watch were the incredible performances by Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Emily Blunt, especially. For a cast full of famous faces, the acting was so good I kind of forgot who they all were in their characters, which made the film even more immersive.
Christopher Nolan has been (rightfully) criticized in the past for his treatment of women as accessories in his moves, and I don’t think Oppenheimer shows as much growth in that area as I would have liked. There are only three female characters in this movie, and one of them, played deftly by Florence Pugh, is mostly there just for sex scenes. I certainly think there is room to improve on making women more three-dimensional in Nolan-world, and it probably stands as my biggest personal problem with the film.
That being said, I think we all need to ask ourselves if Nolan is really the person we want to give a nuanced, enlightened take on womanhood and motherhood when we have filmmakers like Greta Gerwig doing a pretty damn good job. While I’d love to see Nolan do better with his women characters, as a woman I don’t go into his movies expecting it, and I can still really enjoy his films, especially when they’re this good.
My most enduring thought after watching it is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen this effective of a biopic, especially one where the subject is not made to be a hero, but instead an incredibly complex historical figure who caused unspeakable violence. I thought Nolan did a great job walking the line of “this man was a genius” and “his work damaged the world beyond repair.” It is a scathing character study that examines the way that our actions are not just ours, and can even sometimes do irreparable harm.
Genius can be no bandage for destruction.