As to this summer’s choice between Oppenheimer and Barbie, I’m definitely in the latter camp. Even disregarding how grueling it would be to watch a three hour biopic in the cinema, I think this is obviously the richer and more artistically interesting of the two films. Indeed, director Greta Gerwig delivers not only an eye-searingly striking visual fest, but a powerful social commentary that encompasses the themes of gender relations, existentialism and even fits in a critique of Mattel itself. I’m not sure how much most people who watching this only due to the Barbie brand name are getting out of this, but to me, this is a very adult, very serious film.

Stereotypical Barbie and her fellow Barbies enjoy life in Barbieland, a toy-like fantasy world in which the women hold all of the positions of power. The Kens including Beach Ken seem to exist only as arm candy for the Barbies and all compete for their attention. One night in the middle of a party, Barbie is struck by thoughts of mortality. The next morning, she discovers that her feet have become flat and she has cellulite. The outcast Weird Barbie advises her that someone playing with her in the real world must be affecting her so she needs to go there to fix the problem. Ken stows away in her car and so she allows him to accompany her to the real world. Barbie is horrified to find that the real world is completely unlike Barbieland as the men are still dominant. She eventually meets Gloria, the Mattel employee who prompted the existential crisis in her. Meanwhile Ken is overwhelmed and excited by the blatant masculinity he encounters in the real world and uses the ideas to start a revolution in Barbieland.

As far as I’m concerned, this counts as science-fiction as it’s partially set in an alternate world with its own rules. More than its world being pink everywhere and the toy physics it runs on, its matriarchal organization that makes men utterly inconsequential is just as oppressive as the male equivalent and Gerwig isn’t afraid of making that point. The film is full of references to the Barbie toy line including Mattel’s discontinued ones and while most of them flew over my head, it’s enough to convince me how much research went into and how seriously the film treats it. I’m impressed as well by how willing Mattel is to play along as it not only highlights some of the dumb ideas they’ve floated over the years but directly critiques the hypocrisy of the toy company marketing itself as a feminist brand yet is itself still very much male dominated. Plenty of bits about the plot don’t make sense, such as why Barbieland exists in the first place and how it links to the real world so it’s best to consider to just go along with this contrivance.

There’s been plenty of outrage against this as a feminist film but the key lesson here is so simple that it’s hardly anything worth taking up arms against: everyone should just be comfortable being themselves. What’s far more interesting is how it shows the Kens being susceptible to men’s rights propaganda and why it feels so empowering to them after being forced to live in a world dominated by women. A monologue by Gloria lays out her frustrations about the contradictions in the rules women are expected to follow and how impossible it seems to get it right. These are all topical, timely issues and it’s gratifying to watch a film that confronts and grapples with them so frankly. Worth noting is that the film doesn’t repudiate the things that the Kens have come to enjoy. They’re harmful only inasmuch that they deprive the Barbies of their own autonomy but if a Barbie actually wants to just be a housewife, that’s fine too. The film even directly addresses one of the key grievances of the men’s rights crowd in that their constant gripes are all centered around being ignored or unwanted by the women who they do want. Gerwig suggests that they need to define their own identity, independently of Barbie. It’s pretty hard to argue that this film is anti-men when it gives Ryan Gosling playing a Ken an awesome power ballad.

There are limits to how deeply the film can go into these questions and, as my wife notes, a monologue is a less than ideal method for getting the point across in a film. Still, it strikes an excellent balance between sophistication, accessibility and entertainment and I’m impressed by how well a smart, artistic film like this has been doing at the box office. The downside is that the movie studios now think that making more toy-related films that tie-in together as part of a shared universe is a great idea. That’s a terrible idea and I can’t see that ending well at all.