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Is Barbie actually good? First reactions to Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling movie are in

Here’s what critics and viewers are saying about the Barbie movie so far


Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie
Emmy Griffiths
TV & Film Editor
On 10 July 2023
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The reviews for Barbie are in! Perhaps the most hyped-up movie ever has some serious sparkly pink big shoes to fill thanks to its VERY enthusiastic marketing team - but has the Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling movie met the hype? 

In short, yes! The early reactions to the movie have been hugely positive, with Ryan’s performance being particularly lauded. Taking to Twitter, one person wrote: "#Barbie is Ryan Gosling’s best role to date—Greta Gerwig takes everything that has made him great in his previous films and combines them into a Super-Gosling. The Oscar buzz is real, and if it happens it would be one of the most fun and inspired nominations in recent memory."

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Another person added: "#Barbie is perfection. Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play."

A third person added: "#Barbie was a deeply cathartic experience. It’s about the industrialization of art/iconography forming sensibility instead of individualism, and Greta tells it with so much joy and heart. I was cackling at Gosling’s himbo Ken in one scene and bawling my eyes out at the next. A classic." 

Ryan Gosling plays Ken in the movie
Ryan Gosling plays Ken in the movie

Greta Gerwig, who directed the new movie, opened up about it to The Guardian explaining: "The idea of Barbie Land. The idea of Barbie herself being constrained in multitudes. The idea that self is dispersed among many people, that all of these women are Barbie and Barbie is all of these women. 

MORE: Margot Robbie steals the show in vintage-inspired look at Barbie world premiere

"That’s pretty trippy, to begin with. And the sense that she is continuous with her environment. That there really is no internal life, at all. Because there is just no need to have an internal life." 

Margot's new movie has been widely praised
Margot's new movie has been widely praised

Fans have also been enjoying Ryan’s press tour for the film, with one person writing: "Kind of cool how in Ryan Gosling’s Ken we have the positive version of a method actor becoming the joker. Every pr quote from him is incomprehensible. He went to method for Barbie and now his brain doesn’t work." 

As well as telling a reporter that he was "Kenough", the Drive actor opened up about the role to GQ, saying: "There’s something about this Ken that really, I think, relates to that version of myself. Just, like, the guy that was putting on Hammer pants and dancing at the mall and smelling like Drakkar Noir and Aqua Net-ing bangs. 

"I owe that kid a lot. I feel like I was very quick to distance myself from him when I started making more serious films. But the reality is that, like, he’s the reason I have everything I have." 

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