Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Jacqueline Castel’s “My Animal” premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in January, but its vibes are better suited to the rising blood moon of autumn’s spooky season. Now available on major streaming services following a brief theatrical run in select cinemas, Castel’s feature directorial debut is poised to scratch the itch of discerning horror hounds who appreciate slow-burn smarts as much as gory violence. The film’s modest budget and intellectual preoccupations limit the onscreen depictions of werewolf mayhem, but the sensitive bid for empathy and knockout performances by Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Amandla Stenberg make up for small narrative shortcomings.

Menuez’s Heather has reached adulthood but continues to live at home with both parents and younger twin siblings. Castel takes advantage of the well-worn, semi-rural Canadian setting (principal photography took place in the city of Timmins in northeastern Ontario) to outline Heather’s sense of stasis, yearning, and frustration. Patriarch Henry (the great veteran performer Stephen McHattie) runs a local diner and navigates a stormy marriage to alcoholic spouse Patti (Heidi von Palleske). Father and daughter have a special bond, but Castel hints that the out-of-sorts Patti also self-medicates to cope with some unspeakable trauma.

Soon enough, Castel lets us in on the contours of a curious routine: heavy chains and shackles secure Heather to a crimson-sheeted bed each time the moon is full. The members of the nuclear unit know and accept the situation, even if very little needs to be said out loud in reference to Heather’s lycanthropy. The silence extends (although that will change) to Heather’s queerness, another secret emphasizing otherness and outcast status in a world of conservative conformity and expectations that fulfill traditional gender roles. Actor Menuez identifies as trans and nonbinary, but Castel presents the character as femme, underlining the way hockey coach Dutch (Dean McDermott) initially refuses to consider Heather for a goaltender position on the men’s team.

The arrival of Stenberg’s beguiling figure skater Jonny sets Heather’s heart aflame. Stenberg, who also serves as one of the movie’s producers and contributes a song to the appealing, retro-styled soundtrack, brings a strong and sensual eroticism to the budding relationship – first in sultry and symbolic fantasies/dreams and later in a fragile and delicate reality fraught with dangers of several sorts. It seems easy and obvious to read Heather’s sapphic sexual awakening and the imperative to keep hidden the “curse” of werewolf transformation as parallels, but Castel – assisted by the chemistry of the actors – excels at drawing a deep connection despite a familiar conflict.

Like many young romances of novel and cinema, the emotional intimacy between Heather and Jonny is threatened by forces both large and small, internal and external. Castel shrewdly links Heather’s perspective and point of view directly to the viewer; the consuming fears and frustrations become ours as the story moves toward fuller revelations. The final sequences comment on mother-child bonds in a manner far more satisfying than the deliberately open-ended question of Jonny and Heather, though one can make an educated guess before the credits roll.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Many films have used the unsettling revelation of tattoos as a device to startle the viewer with a visual roadmap to a deeper understanding of character. The “love” and “hate” lettering across the knuckles of Robert Mitchum’s Reverend Harry Powell in “The Night of the Hunter,” in the context of the character’s chilling speech, still inspires nightmares. In “Cape Fear,” Mitchum’s Lieutenant Elgart quips of Robert De Niro’s Max Cady (a villain Mitchum originated on screen in 1962), “I don’t know whether to look at him or read him.” The prison tattoos on the body of Viggo Mortensen’s mysterious Nikolai Luzhin in “Eastern Promises” communicate a detailed history. Francis Dolarhyde’s Blake-inspired dragon, Lisbeth Salander’s own complex ink, and the grim reminders guiding Guy Pearce’s Leonard Shelby are just a few more that come to mind.

But hate tattoos of Nazism and white power reside in their own category of cinematic shock. In “Romper Stomper,” “American History X,” “The Believer,” “Skin,” and others, the display of swastikas, iron crosses, death’s heads, and other Third Reich-related runes, black suns and Parteiadler shock and stun as symbols of evil pasts and harbingers of potentially bad things yet to come. Paul Schrader draws from the trope in “Master Gardener,” the final installment of his loose, so-called “Man in a Room” trilogy that began with “First Reformed” in 2017. Second entry “The Card Counter” followed in 2021. All three movies are indebted to Schrader’s commitment to slow cinema as originally outlined in his 1972 book, “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.”

Like the first two segments – and so many of Schrader’s previous movies – the filmmaker’s obsession with exploring tendencies toward self-destruction alongside the seemingly incongruous accompaniment of redemption links his filmography to the careers of the cinematic heroes he wrote about. In “Master Gardener,” Joel Edgerton takes on the occupation of the title as Narvel Roth, a devoted horticulturist who oversees the foliage of Gracewood Gardens, the grounds belonging to the wealthy Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Norma, who we come to learn knows a great deal about Narvel’s past, informs him that her troubled grandniece Maya Core (Quintessa Swindell) will be joining the staff as Narvel’s apprentice.

The arrival of Maya introduces a triangle that will initiate some measure of return to the kinds of antisocial behavior Narvel practiced before he made the changes that led him to Gracewood. True to form, Schrader opts for the austerity and narrative asceticism he so admires. Those choices will delight some viewers as surely as they will alienate and frustrate others. In his curious essay on the film, Richard Brody crafts an argument that “Master Gardener” is “altogether different” from the preceding movies in the trilogy, positing that Schrader’s decision to hold at arm’s length the “matters of history and of race, of mentorship and of gardening” are deficiently ornamental and instrumental.

While I agree with Brody’s characterization of “Master Gardener” as an erotic thriller (even if that assessment is too limiting and narrow), I don’t go along with the assessment claiming a weak and tenuous link between Narvel’s redemption and the minimal effort of “a change of heart, good works, and a sense of self-punishing submission to the terms and conditions of one’s new life.” Instead, Schrader’s wicked caginess and determined reticence carves out the necessary room for us to use our own imaginations when it comes to making sense of these peculiar people.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri play best pals PJ and Josie, woebegone nerds hot for cheerleaders Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) in a high school caste system that looks and feels quite familiar to fans of the durable teen sex comedy. In “Bottoms,” directed by Emma Seligman – who co-wrote the screenplay with her “Shiva Baby” star Sennott – the satire, the visual gags, the gross-outs, and the gusto combine to form one of this year’s most entertaining and refreshing confections. It may not be “Heathers,” or even “Booksmart,” but “Bottoms” boasts more than enough weirdness and originality to earn cult re-watch status.

Seligman successfully establishes the tonal sweet spot for “Bottoms” to blossom and thrive via healthy suspension of disbelief. Like a number of its influences, the film constructs a complete Bizarro-level universe tweaked with three drops of strong metanarrative potion (it never hurts to allude to the fantasy of high school students brought to life by performers in their late 20s and up). We’re back in that place where preening football heroes dress in their uniforms 24/7, a teacher openly peruses a porn glossy titled “Divorced and Happy” during class, and an outlandish scheme to engage in heavy petting launches a self-defense and empowerment group that morphs quickly into a fight club.

Most of the hype ahead of the movie’s wide release focused on the outrageous premise. The description accompanying a Google search still reads, “Unpopular best friends PJ and Josie start a high school fight club to meet girls and lose their virginity,” which isn’t entirely accurate, since our protagonists already shoulder significant and specific unrequited crushes on Brittany and Isabel, whom they already know. But the point is that Seligman and Sennott merely use the eye-catching fight club angle as a means to harden a much more ambitious odyssey through the timeworn tropes and expectations of mainstream teensploitation.

By cultivating a world where audacious and ample profanity peppers the steady flow of observations which are always stretching fully into the territory of adulthood, “Bottoms” prepares us for its glimpses of more pointed social commentary. Conversely, Seligman deliberately chooses not to warn viewers about some of its most brazen demonstrations of movie make-believe. The climactic gridiron fracas, which pulls together a bomb plot, a contaminated sprinkler system, and a gladiatorial nerds-versus-jocks showdown close in spirit to the anarchic news team battle royal in “Anchorman,” brings it in a very particular way.

Seligman and Sennott will likely receive plenty of heat from both conservative and politically-correct voices sure to scold the movie’s utterly brutal commitment to humor in the service of its bigger message. “Bottoms,” unafraid to include jokes about rape and sexual assault, eating disorders, terroristic threats, suicide and self-harm, bullying, and a whole lot more, walks a tightrope during a period of acute scrutiny and culture-policing. Its willingness to offend without apology turns out to be its knockout punch. I look forward to reading the anniversary-marking think pieces and hot takes when the movie celebrates its tenth and twentieth birthdays.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Scrapper,” her feature debut as writer and director, Charlotte Regan establishes a much more whimsical tone than the darker notes sounded by Charlotte Wells in her masterful “Aftersun.” There are more than enough stories exploring difficult father-daughter relationships to chalk up the similarities between the two movies as a fluke of timing, but Regan’s film faces the unenviable challenge of premiering in the wake of so many critical accolades deservingly showered on Wells’s own cinematic arrival. Regan’s entertaining film won’t land at the top of as many year-end “best of” lists as its predecessor, but it is worth seeking out.

Regan introduces the viewer to protagonist Georgie (Lola Campbell), a resourceful 12-year-old devoted to avoiding placement within the foster care system following the death of her mother. Georgie, like the plucky hero of a classic young adult novel, stays one step ahead of the authorities, enlisting the aid of voice recordings from a convenience store employee to fool any social worker who attempts to confirm her welfare. Without any responsible grownup in sight, Georgie turns to petty crime with pal Ali (Alin Uzun) to make ends meet until the surprise arrival of her previously absent father Jason (Harris Dickinson).

Like Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio, the sparking (and sparkling) chemistry between Campbell and Dickinson propels the action and engages the viewer. Regan draws from the tradition of wise-beyond-their-years kids reversing roles with adults who could use some parenting of their own. Sheila O’Malley, who wrote a terrific 2019 piece on the golden age of “tomboy movies” for “Film Comment,” picked up on the “Paper Moon” vibes in her “Scrapper” review for the Roger Ebert site. Just as we are given permission to cheer the generational con artists in Bogdanovich’s movie, Regan sympathizes with a dad who passes down his bicycle-theft knowledge to his offspring.

Dickinson, who has been so great in projects like “Beach Rats” and “Triangle of Sadness,” nails the contradictions of Jason’s arrested development. Longing for connection and a sense of greater responsibility, the performance illustrates how much childhood remains inside someone who became a parent while still a kid himself. Paired with Campbell, a newcomer who more than holds her own with the screen veteran, Dickinson finds all kinds of places only hinted at in the script. Georgie’s grief at the loss of her closest companion and caregiver may be more outwardly apparent, but Jason also earns our empathy.

Paul Klein identifies similarities and differences between “Aftersun” and “Scrapper,” but argues that both are important films for the simple fact that their portrayals of “people from broken homes and lower incomes” avoid demonizing many choices that might be seen as symptoms of class struggle. Klein goes on to commend Regan’s decision to emphasize Georgie’s use of fantasy and imagination rather than to focus on poverty and suffering. Multiple reviews have overstated the various ways in which “Scrapper” evokes the cinema of Wes Anderson, but there is no question that Regan’s Georgie-level worldview carefully stylizes what would otherwise be grim reality.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Ruth Beckermann’s “Mutzenbacher” invites viewers to consider the traditional dynamics of the erotic novel – and subsequent filmic depictions of eroticism – by rearranging the visual furniture most closely associated with the voyeuristic gaze privileging the straight, white, male producer/consumer. The filmmaker uses “Josephine Mutzenbacher or, The Story of a Viennese Whore as Told by Herself,” the anonymously-published 1906 book, as a vehicle to explore sexuality, masculinity, taboo, power, and fantasy. Beckermann invites roughly 100 men, age 16 to 99, to “audition” for a film by reading aloud several graphic excerpts as solo performers or in pairs and small groups.

The tactic initially mirrors the longstanding custom of the humiliating “cattle call” tryout in which young women are brutally judged as much for their physical appearance as for their acting ability (see charged examples in “Showgirls,” “Girl 6,” “Always Shine,” “Mulholland Dr.” and many others). Beckermann, who we hear interacting with her subjects from behind the camera, does not ask the participants to undress, but many other elements receive sharp deconstruction. As Charles Bramesco shrewdly observes,  “Every aspect of the process, from the forced-femme narration fostering identification across gender lines to the subjugated approval-seeking recalling anxious starlets, has been calibrated to undercut macho impulses so that we might explore what lies beneath.”

At one time attributed to Arthur Schniztler and later credited to “Bambi” author Felix Salten, “Josephine Mutzenbacher” recounts the debauched carnal education of the title character as she looks back from middle age to her life from 5 to 13, the period before she finds employment as a prostitute. Beckermann stages her interviews in a former coffin factory, frequently emphasizing a sofa covered in a pinkish floral motif as a triple reminder of source material, Freudian psychoanalysis, and casting couch. Viewers unfamiliar with the novel are brought up to speed through the fascinating exchanges that Beckermann shares with the colorful parade of curious and aspiring performers.

Since at least 1970, more than a dozen film versions inspired by “Josephine Mutzenbacher” have been produced, along with live cabaret adaptations, parodies, and audiobook recordings. As Beckermann points out through the on-camera interviews that preface several of the conversations included in her film, the story is well-known to native German speakers, equally as famous as Cleland’s “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” (1748) is in the English language realm. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus in Furs” (1870) and several of Sade’s writings boast broader recognition. The latter’s works had a clear influence on the author of “Josephine Mutzenbacher.”

Beckermann teases all manner of responses from her interview subjects. Some lean into the most salacious and disturbing content, lamenting what they perceive as our current era’s more conservative moral climate. Others squirm in embarrassment or discomfort at the ribald prose. The filmmaker frequently uses the readings as a starting point from which to probe the personal histories and moral beliefs of the volunteers. The cumulative effect of Beckermann’s men-only conceit ultimately directs viewers to reframe aspects of identification with others, as the readers narrate the action via the first-person perspective from which they recite.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Randall Park, making his feature directorial debut, convincingly adapts Adrian Tomine’s excellent 2004-2007 graphic serial “Shortcomings.” Tomine wrote the screenplay, which comes as a relief to longtime “Optic Nerve” fans worried that a movie wouldn’t adequately capture the particularities of the author’s beautifully minimalist lines and the mood contained in the spaces within and between the panels. The collaborators are so obviously invested in the integrity of the original content that the spirit carries over, even if the pacing feels faster than the more languid introspection afforded by the comics medium.

A few timely pop culture updates, including both direct and indirect references to items like “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” indicate the ways in which some things change and others stay the same for a central character known for intense pessimism served with large helpings of sarcasm and negativity. Those signature personality traits place Ben (a super Justin H. Min, as good here as in “After Yang”) in a rarefied category: the misanthropic protagonist who challenges audience expectations in regard to rooting interest and sympathy.

Tomine’s existing fanbase is already prepared to spend time with asshole Ben, who manages a Berkeley theater as a film school dropout (providing many opportunities for additional self-reflexive cinematic in-jokes, name-checks, quotations, and homages; in one sense, Ben watches people watching movies). Ben’s longtime girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) moves to NYC for an internship, signaling doom for the couple’s future and setting the stage for a series of misbegotten romances and bad choices. Ben’s fondness for white women gives Park and company some meaty material to chew. The racial/ethical minefield is met head-on, even though the film version notably leaves out the size anxiety referred to in the title’s double entendre.

The sharp and incisive way in which cultural representation, identity, and fetish bump up against and are filtered through classic screwball tropes is handled by Park with aplomb – one of the funniest scenes is the mirror turnabout that introduces Ben to white guy Leon (Timothy Simons), a Japanese-speaking Asiaphile. Park alternates between Ben’s dating misadventures and his conversations with best pal Alice (Sherry Cola), who uses Ben as a beard to avoid coming out to her religious Korean family. Cola is another of Park’s assets, her presence alleviating some measure of Ben’s suffocating cold-bloodedness.

Hopefully, the movie version of “Shortcomings” will lead viewers to the book. In a 2016 essay, Stella Oh investigates varieties of spectatorship and voyeurism in the original work that might not be as immediately apparent (or at least as visually emphasized) to those now looking at Park’s film. Oh writes, “As a conscious and active collaborator in the graphic novel, the audience witnesses the multiple failures Ben is subjected to and critically views multiple lenses, frames, and screens that reflect racial and gendered identities.” Viewers of the new movie are also exposed to Ben’s shortcomings, but the foregrounding of the comedic separates the totality of the cinematic and group experience (even if many will be streaming at home) from the more apparent melancholia emanating from Tomine’s panels, which are intensified by the typically solitary act of reading.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Available on Hulu following a world premiere at Sundance and a spring release date in the U.K., director Raine Allen-Miller’s feature debut “Rye Lane” is an ebullient drop of sunshine with more than enough charm to match its fresh and earnest spin on the romantic comedy. Even the rom-com averse will find plenty to like in the story of a meet-cute (or, given the initial sobbing, meet-pitiful) between two twenty-something Londoners reeling from bad break-ups. The title announces the real-life location that will, via the southside districts of Peckham and Brixton, operate as a character while Yas (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson) follow in the cinematic footsteps of role models like Celine and Jessie in the Vienna of “Before Sunrise.”

Unlike Linklater’s classic, “Rye Lane” skips the ticking-clock urgency of a looming flight in favor of a more casual walk-and-talk that unfolds over the course of several increasingly eventful hours. But Allen-Miller’s eye and ear for flirtatious banter (scripted by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia) and the chemistry between Oparah and Jonsson are often as exhilarating as the best interactions first brought to life by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in 1995. I love Meagan Jordan’s spot-on note that “Whereas F. Gary Gray’s ‘Friday’ was a comedy about a day that gets progressively worse, ‘Rye Lane’ is about a day that gets continuously better, if not funnier and more loving … “

Urination – much less gross than it sounds – bookends the movie. The finale is a hilarious outtake that revels in the limits of a low-budget (and low-angle) special effect, but the inaugural instance refers to the interruption of Yas’s relief by Dom’s vocal sobs in a nearby bathroom stall at an art show opening. Outside the restroom, small talk leads to more conversation. And just like that, “Rye Lane” starts to spark with electrical current that has us yearning for a reason – any reason – to keep these two together so we can discover where things might go. Like Clementine accepting a ride from Joel after a moment of hesitation in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or the “lifetime sidewalk” talk of Christine and Richard in “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” curiosity and possibility fuel the characters and their viewers.

Alongside that curiosity is an equally important ingredient: vulnerability. During the movie, Yas and Dom will open up to each other in unexpected ways. Allen-Miller exploits the inversion of the historically more common film dynamic in which boy pursues girl. Yas embraces her extroverted impulsiveness by role-playing the part of new girlfriend when Dom meets up to clear the air with his ex Gia (Karene Peter), who cheated with and is now dating Dom’s best friend Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni). Later, the introverted and apprehensive Dom will surprise Yas by mustering the courage to help liberate her copy of “The Low End Theory” from the pretentious Jules (Malcolm Atobrah).

And speaking of music, “Rye Lane” is an aural treat. Complementing the fluid camerawork and vibrant production and costume design, the film’s original score by Kwes makes up for the absence of several cost-prohibitive needle-drops referenced in the story. Allen-Miller’s workarounds include delightful diegetic renditions of “Sign Your Name” (at a backyard party where Dom’s weepy playlist is exposed) and “Shoop” (at an epic karaoke night that brings our potential lovers closer together). The result is another layer of knowing craftsmanship, which “Rye Lane” has in abundant supply.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Dutch photographer, music video creator, and film director Anton Corbijn – now in his late 60s – brings his artistic insider touch to “Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis,” an engaging and entertaining documentary examination of the massively influential team responsible for some of the most recognizable album covers of the 1970s. Suited to the likes of rock fans and graphic design geeks (and especially the sizable demographic that includes both), the movie is also the story of the personal and creative friendship between two maverick visionaries: the late Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell.

While Thorgerson and Powell may not be household names to the millions who have purchased one or more albums featuring their handiwork, they are – in several significant ways – rock stars to the rock stars who hired, trusted, and championed them. Corbijn includes interviews with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and others who marveled at the stunning results that would come to visually represent groups like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in equal measure to the sonic signatures inside the sleeves.

Watching “Squaring the Circle,” one gets the distinct feeling that Corbijn simply made the movie he wanted to see. All the juiciest stories, legendary productions, and thorny conflicts are collected and laid out like a lavishly illustrated, oversize coffee table tome come to life. Undoubtedly, a number of viewers who seek out the film – now available to stream following a 2022 world premiere at Telluride and a subsequent screening at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival – already own one or more of the several books devoted to archiving the Hipgnosis aesthetic.

In a time before Photoshop, Hipgnosis relied on analog tools and fierce commitment to achieve impressive results. Complicated and expensive photoshoots (some humorously recounted here) were standard operating procedure for many of the firm’s collaborations, but post-production image manipulation through airbrushing, multiple exposure, and good old fashioned cut-and-paste contributed to the magic. There are several candidates one could consider for the heavyweight title, but it is in no way possible to fully account for the Hipgnosis phenomenon without mentioning “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

George Hardie’s simple and elegant depiction of white light separated into a rainbow after passing through a prism was inspired by a photo Thorgerson saw in an old physics textbook, but like so many of the arresting pieces to emerge from the Hipgnosis shop, the art worked in complementary tandem with the recording, engaging in a kind of conversation with and extension of the ideas contained in the songs. This interplay could be found in the most successful Hipgnosis projects, which often added humor, puns, and layered meanings – some obvious, some obscure, and some not appreciated by clients – to the experience.

“Squaring the Circle” follows several concert films and underrated narrative features (“Control” and “The American” among them) by Corbijn, who has enjoyed fruitful partnerships with Depeche Mode and U2 that stretch back to the 1980s. His own evocative photography represents a stylistic contrast to Hipgnosis, but the director’s sincere appreciation for their pioneering accomplishments can be seen in the admiration and respect that went into assembling the movie.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As fans dress up and Warner and Mattel executives celebrate box office returns, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” finally arrives – along with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” – to jolt attendance and launch thousands of essays on everything from the film’s use of the Old Testament creation myth to its mockery of male fragility and the stranglehold of the patriarchy. A rainbow-colored fantasia not aimed at the intellectual capacity of the principal doll-collecting demographic (tots at the screening I attended repeatedly asked when the show would be over), the curious big-budget object is part cinematic bricolage, part satirical parody, part earnest homage, part metanarrative, and all paradox.

The paradox manifests most overtly in the way that Gerwig managed to secure near carte blanche from the IP overlords to address the misfires, problematics, curiosities, and cultural reinterpretations of the Barbie universe that would normally be squashed by fiscally conservative gatekeepers afraid of anything that might damage the brand’s bottom line. The result of that freedom is right there in the trailer, which promises, “If  you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.” Gerwig completely gets the way that the constructed feminism of the doll’s many empowerment career offerings (from astronaut to surgeon to entrepreneur to judge) clashes with the longtime arguments about Barbie’s impossible body proportions/beauty standards, white idealization, and unchecked materialism.

The film, which Gerwig co-wrote with partner Noah Baumbach, mostly gets to have its pink-frosted cake and eat it, even if the sobering environmental threat of climate impact exacerbated by the fossil fuel and deforestation requirements that it takes to manufacture the estimated 58 million dolls purchased each year is sold separately. The thankfully subdued appearance of Will Ferrell, in what at first looks to be the umpteenth variation on his exasperated executive, melts into the larger conflict between the utopian, matriarchal comfort of Barbieland and the grim gender inequities of the “real world.”

Margot Robbie is perfect as the so-called “Stereotypical Barbie” iteration of the icon, but a hilarious Ryan Gosling nearly steals every scene in which he appears as the dangerously dim Ken, an opportunistic hippophile who goes wild when he discovers that outside Barbieland, down is up and black is white when it comes to society’s treatment of men and women. Remaking their home as a nightmarish mirror image of masculine overconfidence, the Kens take to mansplaining “The Godfather” and strumming multi-hour versions of Matchbox Twenty’s “Push.” The Barbies plot to dismantle this new toxicity, but will a return to the previous anodyne self-deception make things any better?

The fulcrum for a yet-to-be-discovered third path is delivered by America Ferrera’s Gloria, a Mattel employee sympathetic to Barbie, in a terrific, quintessentially Gerwig-ian monologue that has instantly become the film’s signature moment. The heartfelt expression of frustration at the unresolvable conundra of contradictory expectations for women, no matter how recognizable and familiar to so many viewers, is a show-stopping tour de force delivered with a potency that has resulted in reports of everything from cheers and applause to tearful, stunned silence. It’s anything but plastic.