#Barbenheimer: What I Thought of This Summer’s Two Biggest Movies

You had to be sleeping under a rock to not have heard about Barbenheimer, the portmanteau made by combining the names of this summer’s two most eagerly anticipated movies: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. 

Other than ambitious filmmakers taking large swings and huge ensemble casts full of recognizable faces, the two films do not have much in common; one is a candy-colored comedy based on a popular toy, and the other is a drama about one of the darkest chapters in American history. But the hype over the last few months turned their release on the same day into a legitimate event. Just check out the memes and social media chatter — not to mention the brand partnerships. In response, fans showed up in droves; the two movies together earned more than $235 million at the box office on opening weekend in the United States and Canada.

If you’re someone who’s still on the fence about seeing one or both of these movies, or you’ve somehow managed to avoid all the buzz, let me cut to the chase and share the good news that they’re both worthy of the hype and worth seeing. That’s a bit of a modern-day miracle given we’re living in times when hyperbole and (undeserved) overpromotion are the norm.

What more do you need to know? Here are my thoughts about both films, in reverse alphabetical order.

An entire life on trial

Oppenheimer is a typically big movie from the writer/director of such films as Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Dunkirk — the latter of which was my favorite movie of 2017 — and I’ll state right up front that I saw Nolan’s latest in 70mm IMAX, the ideal and preferred format for seeing the film. The experience was nothing short of immersive and awe inspiring.

As you might know, Oppenheimer tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (a stoic Cillian Murphy, giving his best performance to date), the physicist credited with inventing the atomic bomb. The bomb was intended to be “a weapon to end all wars,” and it was initially developed in a race against the Germans — the film dramatizes how Oppenheimer, a Jewish man, wanted to beat the Germans partly because of how other Jews were being treated by the Nazis. But Germany surrendered before the bomb could be used, and it was instead used to disastrous effect in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Oppenheimer’s work was not embraced by everyone. In fact, after the war, he developed a bit of a conscience about what he’d unleashed. (You might say he agreed with the Kanye West line, “No one man should have all that power.”) Simultaneously, Oppenheimer’s early support for the Communist party came to cloud others’ thoughts about him, and as a result, politicians like Lewis Strauss (a never better Robert Downey Jr.), head of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, set about taking him down.

Using a mix of color and black-and-white photography that heightens the possibility and paranoia of the story, respectively, Nolan spends the film’s three-hour running time shuffling between two timelines: One is labeled “Fusion,” and it covers the coming together of the top-secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The other is “Fission,” and it covers the unraveling of Oppenheimer’s legacy and the splitting apart of his team’s loyalties in the 1950s. 

We don’t ever see conflict on the battlefield. We don’t even see the destruction the bomb causes in Japan — though it’s hinted at in a memorable way during a celebratory scene at the end of the war. Instead, the conflict here is in the classroom, the boardroom, and in Congressional hearings (public and private), as the characters debate and prosecute Oppenheimer’s work and his affiliations. This is a film about ideas — ego, morality, and the politicization of science, among them — and to that end, Nolan’s screenplay is talky, dense, and thought-provoking. It often flows in a way that feels like a mashup of Aaron Sorkin and Oliver Stone (particularly Stone’s JFK, an obvious influence here). For the record, I mean that as a compliment.

The words are delivered by a giant and largely top-notch (and, worth noting, almost entirely male) ensemble playing scientists, politicians, military leaders, and lawyers — including Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Josh Hartnett, Benny Safdie, Alden Ehrenreich, Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, Jack Quaid, Rami Malek, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, and Florence Pugh.

Was developing the bomb worth it? What doors did it open? Nolan’s film asks a lot of questions that resonate today given the rapid development of artificial intelligence and similar technologies that promise to change the world. 

I could go on about how impressive the cinematography is (much of it tight closeups, but still) or how Ludwig Göransson’s strong and ever-present score adds to the tension. But all told, Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a heavyweight film about the risks, rewards, responsibility, and, yes, regrets of scientific discovery, and without a doubt, it’s one of the best films of the year.

Anywhere else, I’d be a 10

Yes, Barbie has been marketed as a bright pink and blue fantasia that may bring to mind The Lego Movie. But Gerwig has a lot more on her mind than product placement — though, to be sure, there’s plenty of that here, too. Her film is an intelligently made and very funny movie that pays tribute to and tweaks the legacy of this very American creation, but gets mired in some less than subtle messaging along the way. 

Barbie starts in Barbieland, where the characters (nearly all of whom are named Barbie and Ken) live in a perfect existence, with lives and personalities imprinted on them by the people in the real world who are playing with them. In Barbieland, women run the government, have all the important jobs, win all the awards and prizes, and believe “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved,” as our narrator (Helen Mirren) explains. 

The Barbies have it all, and the main Barbie, who is referred to as “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), also has a boyfriend, Ken (Ryan Gosling), a doll whose only value comes from the attention he gets from Barbie and whose job is the broadly identified “Beach.”

When Barbie suddenly starts asking questions about death, her feet go flat, and she finds (gasp!) cellulite on her thighs, it’s clear something is wrong. She’s advised by “Weird Barbie” (Kate McKinnon), a version of the doll that’s been played with a bit too much, that she has to go to the real world to find the person who’s playing with her and set things right again. This sets in motion a Pinocchio-like plot about what it means to be human and female, as Barbie learns women are treated a bit differently in the real world than they are in Barbieland.

Ken goes along for the ride and learns this same lesson, albeit with an entirely different perspective. Armed with knowledge about the “patriarchy,” he heads back to Barbieland and essentially turns it into a man cave known as the “Kendom.” And this results in a lot of highly amusing jokes about gender roles and misguided, toxic masculinity. For example, the default song on Barbieland’s radio station changes from the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” to Matchbox 20’s “Push.”

Yes, a lot of it is silly. But the humor is consistently funny and the laughs are earned. Credit for this also goes to Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, While We’re Young), Gerwig’s partner, who co-wrote the screenplay with her.

That said, the film does get a bit heavy handed at times, and that’s frustrating. I’m not saying I was offended by it or anything. Just that, I mean … alright, Greta. We get it.

Through it all, Robbie gives a perfectly pitched performance that effectively straddles the line between real and ridiculous. It’s not condescending or meta. But it’s Gosling — who delivers a delightful and endearing performance that captures the goofy dim-wittedness of Ken’s limited role in Barbie’s world — who practically steals the movie. Suffice it to say, he definitely understood the assignment. If there’s any justice, we’ll still be talking about Gosling when awards time rolls around. And if we’re really lucky, he’ll get to perform Ken’s big song, “Just Ken,” on the Oscars. It’s one of the film’s many highlights.

(Meanwhile, Will Ferrell, as the Mattel CEO, is overused and unnecessary.)

There are a lot of nice moments in this movie that nod to Barbie’s origins, and how the toys have been handed down from one generation to another. Gerwig also includes a response to those who think Barbie isn’t as relevant as she may have once been. And I liked how diverse the cast is (it includes Issa Rae, Simu Liu, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and America Ferrara, among others).

But social commentary aside, Barbie is just a fun movie that’s better than anyone could have imagined, given that it’s based on a line of toys. I look forward to seeing it again sometime.

Double feature?

Oppenheimer and Barbie are two great movies that both deserve time to settle so they can be appreciated on their own merits. With that in mind, I would not recommend a same-day double feature. And I’d suggest seeing Barbie first, as a sort of cinematic appetizer, before the main course of Oppenheimer.

Either way, you won’t be disappointed by either of these films.

I’m giving Oppenheimer an A and Barbie a B+.