Believe the hype: ‘Barbie’ is the most inventive and funniest film of the year

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Believe the “Barbie” hype.

The third film from director Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird,” “Little Women”) is a masterpiece, a surreal meta-comedy and occasional musical that doubles as an allegory about self-worth, feminism and what it means to be human. Joyful and irreverent, inventive and impactful, “Barbie” is all of the things.

Margot Robbie is perfectly cast as Stereotypical Barbie, a beautiful blonde enjoying a seemingly perfect life in Barbie Land, a visually stunning, eternally bright plastic utopia of pink and more pink where she lives in a dream house, wears stylish clothes and every night ends in a dance party.

In Barbie Land, Barbie is every woman and every woman is Barbie. None are mid. She can be anything: President Barbie (Issa Rae), Nobel Prize Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Dr. Barbie (Hari Neff), Scientist Barbie (Emma Mackey), etc., The Kens (Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ncuti Gatwa) only exist in the warm gaze of their Barbie. Their one job is “beach,” which, I think, means to look good in a bathing suit. Allan (Michael Cera) is also hanging around but nobody seems to care about him.

Their idyllic world is rocked when Robbie’s Barbie starts thinking about, gulp, death. Her high-heel feet suddenly flatten and she develops — gasp! — cellulite. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) explains the human who Sterotypical Barbie belongs to in the Real World is having dark thoughts, creating a rift in the membrane separating the two worlds. To become perfect again, she must travel to Los Angeles to find the source of the sadness. It’s absurd, yes, but just go with it!

Naturally, Gosling’s Ken tags along. Once in the Real World and after a requisite amount of culture shock, Barbie meets Gloria (America Ferrera) and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), a mother and tween daughter with a fractured relationship. She also runs into the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell), who wants to put her back in a box.

Ken, meanwhile, stumbles into an office building and discovers the patriarchy. Uh-oh.

To say anything more would spoil the fun. But the result is an original experience with sprinkles of “The Truman Show,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The LEGO Movie,” “Back to the Future Part II” and a Busby Berkeley musical thrown in. The script, by Gerwig and her Oscar-nominated partner Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”), is imaginative and witty as it reclaims the narrative of a doll long criticized for promoting unrealistic body standards and flips it into an unexpectedly bold story that’s unapologetically feminist. Ferrera’s monologue about what it means to be a woman is the most powerful scene I’ve seen in a movie this year.

The funniest, though, has to be Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken.” What starts out as a sweet song about a guy with a broken heart quickly devolves into an “Anchorman”-like brawl before pivoting into a bizarre dance sequence that will either mesmerize you or make you question what is life. Gosling’s work is brilliant throughout the film as he fully commits to the character, lighting up the screen every time he’s on it. Turns out, he’s more than “Kenough.”

But this is Robbie’s movie and she owns it. Her Barbie is charming yet vulnerable, hopeful yet grounded, and her performance provides an entry point for the audience into the highly stylized world of Barbie Land. That’s huge because the existential crisis Barbie is facing — not having agency over your imperfections or imperfect life — isn’t female-specific. It’s all of ours at one time or another.

Still, Gerwig makes sure to take care of the movie’s core audience, too, dialing up the nostalgia level to high. Longtime Barbie fans will get a kick out of seeing the different dolls, classic outfits and accessories they had growing up brought to life. But, again, the most surprising thing about the film is how relatable it is for everybody– even those who grew up with Transformers or G.I. Joe. “Barbie” is a modern fairy tale that speaks to the current moment where individuality is under attack and does it with humor, optimism and depth. I laughed, I cried, I didn’t stop smiling until the credits rolled.

Let the Mattel Cinematic Universe begin!

“Barbie” is rated PG-13 and opens exclusively in theaters on July 21.