Surely the most daring and frankly bananas of all the big blockbusters packing out the multiplexes this summer. Subtext is practically non-existent here, but for a film of this kind Barbie is unusually smart and often very funny - so who cares if it’s a bit (or even very) on the nose? It plays out like a kind of deranged remake of The Wizard of Oz [1939], only now the pink (rather than yellow) brick road leads the way out of dreamland (an emphatically artificial world of painted skies and giant plastic sets) and into the drab reality of patriarchal modern society. The message is unabashedly feminist and righteously so, taking side-swipes at everything from bodybuilding and mini-fridges to mansplaining filmbros who obsess over The Godfather and the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. At the same time, Gerwig simultaneously satirizes and celebrates the classic corporate IP that is the film’s ostensible subject. Though the sugary sweetness of it all can reach quite sickly levels during some of the more excessively sentimental sequences, the admittedly uneven script has enough wit and invention in it to keep entertainment levels high. Gerwig’s direction is stylish and highly cineliterate (sprinkling the film with cinephile references to everything from Busby Berkeley stage musicals to The Truman Show [1998]), and is given additional bounce by Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, which seems to have been colour-graded through infinitely varying shades of pink. Ryan Gosling’s film-stealing performance as the vacuous and insecure Ken - a toxic cesspool of male angst who is at the same time somehow endearing - has been justly celebrated, but it should not distract from Margot Robbie’s absolute perfection in the lead role.