Barbenheimer (Barbie, 2023 & Oppenheimer, 2023)

It’s a mood, it’s a phenomenon, it’s the double feature we never knew we needed.  For those four people on planet earth still unaware, Barbenheimer is the watching of two very different movies back to back.  Barbie is the neon-soaked story of how a simple, stereotypical Barbie doll encounters The Real World and learns the meaning of life.  Oppenheimer tells how J Robert Oppenheimer created the nuclear bomb, and was then sold down the river by the US government.  Watching Oppenheimer first, followed by a spot of lunch, then back in for Barbie was one of my most enjoyable ever days at the cinema.  And for all the obvious differences between these two films, I couldn’t help but notice how strangely similar they were.

This most unlikely film combination really shows the strengths and limitations of Hollywood film.  For starters, they both looked incredible.  Oppenheimer is mostly people talking in rooms, but it’s gorgeously stylish, and full of pleasing abstract flourishes  (Sack the sound mixer though – I missed a good quarter of the dialogue).  Barbie is, of course, a riot of colour and girly glamour.  The set design and costuming are especially good.  Yet there is a sense that everyone took their work here seriously, that each element was deeply, thoughtfully considered.  Playtime is, after all, a very serious business. From Barbie’s dream houses to the drinking glasses at the party with the tiny flamingos, scenes overflow with perfect scale replicas of the original toys.  Multiple re-watches would be needed to catch all the clever little details.  

And yet, both films are deliberately, frustratingly shallow.  For all the time-shifting bells and whistles, Oppenheimer swerves all consideration of the moral complexities of nuclear weaponry.    What happened to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the indigenous and Hispanic population of Los Alamos, are entirely ignored.  We know that JR feels bad, but that’s about it.  Perhaps the story is a deliberate, bathetic arc from unlocking the mysteries of the universe to petty Washington power plays and masochistic anti-communist witch hunts.  That would perhaps satisfy if we also learned something of the man himself. But though the ending has stark, haunting power,  RJ remains a distant, unfathomable figure even after the credits roll.

However, performances in both films are phenomenal.  The Oppenheimer cast is frankly outrageous – brilliant, committed performances across the board – as yet more famous faces pop up to join proceedings.  Rami Malek!  Josh Harnett!  Gary Oldman!  Cillian Murphy has finally, finally be given – and delivered on – the role of a lifetime.  Almost painfully thin, bright blue eyes contemplating the possibilities and horrors of his creation, Murphy is never less than mesmerising.  And Robert Downey Jnr continues to demonstrate why he’s the best loved man in Hollywood.  It seems less that he has physically transformed into the role, more allowed himself to become the savvy, vicious, thin-skinned Strauss.  

And in counterpoint to the confected outrage at Barbie’s supposed ‘anti-man’ stance, I would respectfully point out how entirely ancillary women are in Oppenheimer.    I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the first ‘I am become Death’ scene.  The film also does that infuriating thing of having a man disagree with a woman he met thirty seconds ago, and her immediate response is to sleep with him.  We never even find out if Jean died by suicide or murder, she’s that unimportant.  Yeah, it was the 40s. But it’s still a tiresome, flattened presentation of two characters I would like to have seen more of. 

Ryan Gosling is the absolute star of Barbie, hitting the mark as Ken every single time.  He deliverous every ridiculous line with absolute commitment, drawing an almost painful reaction of equal parts pity and derision.  You really could not imagine anyone else in the role now. It’s a pleasingly unironic performance, utterly convincing as this needy, showy, half formed thing.   Poor Ken, never really understanding himself or the world around him.  And certainly not Barbie, for all his protestations of love. 

Which takes us to Barbie’s biggest problem.  Ken is by far the most interesting character in the movie.  In it’s determination not to upset the boys, Barbie forgets who its main character is.  Our Barbie herself is appallingly inert as a character.  She goes to the real world, comes back again, has an existential crisis-nap (fair) and then grows a vagina.  I realise she is literally a doll, but you’d think acquiring humanity would mean showing something of a personality?

I kept expecting the film to surprise me.  To have a moment that would really hit home.  When Barbie talks with her maker, I hoped we might see her grow old (bit of foreshadowing with the lady at the bus-stop?) But, no. Only a few anodyne, insta-filtered snap shots of family life.  Is that all womanhood really is?  Would she finally react with unexpected glee at developing cellulite?  Embrace the messy, glorious physicality of being a woman?  Nope. Just has an appointment with the gyno. It’s all – fine.  I just kept waiting for a gut punch moment of power, of resonance, or even rage; but the film is almost willfully simplistic, refusing absolutely to get it’s knifes out, and really deliver on it’s satirical potential.   Yet it’s also far too self aware to satisfy as just a bright and breezy tale about a doll.  Maybe hopes were too high, but I can’t help but think that there’s a bloody good film in here somewhere.  At least President Barbie got the memo:  ‘This is Barbie’s dream house, mother-f****r!’

I had never intended to see either of these films at the cinema, but those marketing folks got me.  And I have to admit, Barbenheimer really made for a wonderful day of cinema.  Minor grumbles notwithstanding, I couldn’t be happier with the shot in the arm this cultural phenomenon has given film.  UK cinemas haven’t been this busy for a decade.  Barbie is currently cruising past a billion dollar gross – the first female directed film ever to do so.  Oppenheimer  has already made five times it’s budget.  After covid, and now heading into the SAG-AFTRA strike, this unique film experience has arrived just in time to remind us why we love – and need –  the movies. 

What did you think?  Were the memes better than the movies?  Did you watch Barbie first?  Did you you find Allan to be an unexpected delight? As ever, let me know!

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

***spoilers below!***

‘Remember, Puss.  Death comes for us all.’

Like most people, I imagined that a Puss in Boots-based movie would be a pleasant bit of fluff designed to keep the kids quiet for a couple of hours.  Sometimes, it’s good to be wrong. Because the anarchic, self-aware and surprisingly profound story of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish makes this little gem of a movie a true spiritual successor to The Greatest Sequel in Movie History – Shrek 2.     

But, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Our story begins with our favourite whiskered hero throwing himself into yet another death-defying scenario for the benefit of some grateful townsfolk.  But despite his victory in a beautifully rendered battle with a wood-giant, poor Puss is unceremoniously crushed to death by a rogue church bell.  But fret not.  For Puss, like all noble felines, has nine lives to play with.   He therefore emerges from his latest death with no more concern than we would give to a medium-sized hangover. 

However, once the local doctor/barber/witch-finder has done some quick maths, he points out that Puss has now been killed no less than eight times.  And that means his next death will be for keeps.  As he starts to realise the seriousness of his situation, Puss makes a decent attempt at peaceful retirement.  But when by chance he hears of a fallen star that will give the finder a single wish, our hero brushes off his hat and boots, and embarks upon a quest to get his swamp back.  No – sorry!  To get his nine lives back.  Along the way he finds companions old and new, battles enemies mortal and otherwise, and finally discovers what life is really all about.

I do get a bit nervous when I see an animated movie with a cast list stuffed with famous names.  Screen acting and voice acting are really very different skills, and without strong vocal work, an animated story like this can never really take off.  Happily, the The Last Wish cast all deliver the goods.  First praise has to go to Harvey Guillen, who was wonderful as dear Perrito. It’s always tricky to be the earnest character, especially in a film as self-aware as this one, but his determined optimism – at first played for laughs – emerges as a genuine source of resilience in an unfeeling and perilous world.  (Yes, I would like to be his friend.) Antonio Banderas has definitely been working on his growl, and throws himself into his musical number with gusto.  Salma Hayek was an excellent foil to Puss, helped by some understated but very effective character design.  The movie avoids entirely that awful trend of sticking boobs on a non-human character and deciding that makes them female.  Instead, it is gestures, expressions, and movement which convey a sense of the feminine or masculine. That, and the occasional, exceptional beard.  While the films visuals generally tend towards the expressive rather than realistic, in this area, a less-is-more approach works wonders.  

Of course, there is no such thing as a decent quest without a decent baddie. Shrek had Lord Farquaad, and then the iconic Fairy Godmother, but Jack Horner is honestly one of the most brilliantly, relentlessly unpleasant baddies I’ve ever seen on screen.   He is entirely without merit, charm, or redeeming feature.  Unendingly, grindingly grasping in his pursuit of any and all magical relics, we might start to wonder if there is some larger aim to all of this?  Some reason behind all the de-horned unicorns? All those mangled henchmen?  Nope.  Jack wants all the magic in the world just so that no one else can have it.  It’s so bleak!  So pointless!  So…depressingly believable.  Is this some comment on end-stage Capitalism?  Perhaps a more pointed criticism of Hollywood’s increasing obsession with Intellectual Property?  Or is Jack just the anti -Puss?  What you are left with when a person refuses ever to learn, to change, to care at all?  

Because for all the lush, inventive visuals, pacy story-telling, and flashes of Shrek-ish humour, The Last Wish is at heart a rather serious tale.  Which involves our Puss becoming a rather serious character. He learns – very slowly – that everyone has to grow up, and everybody dies.  And the only thing that makes life worth living is finding people to care about.   

That does sound a bit much now I’ve written it out, but this animated cat in a fairytale world honestly shows more character development than you’d see in a dozen real-live leading men.   Puss spends a lot of time running from the past, from commitment, even from Death.  But he does eventually learn to admit his mistakes.  He apologies to the people he has hurt.  He looks inward and realises that he needs to make a change.  In short, he grows up.   That doesn’t mean losing any sense of joy or potential (looking at you, Jack).  It means making real connections and fighting to keep them.   So finally, in a spaghetti-western inspired showdown, our animated feline friend fights Death itself.  Puss doesn’t win of course, but he does choose to keep on fighting.  Best result you can hope for, really.

It is a surprisingly down-beat ending, in a way.  No wish for anyone, no easy solutions here.  Make the most of what you have, because while you can’t choose what happens to you, you can chose how you react to it.  Look around you, and within you, and really think about what is worth fighting for.  Loss is part of what defines us, but it’s never the whole story.  Death is inevitable, but first we can live. It’s heady stuff!  But all in all it feels bittersweet, not melancholy, because I think Puss’s best days are still in front of him.

What did you think?  Were you caught unawares by the surprisingly intense storyline?  How did this film compare to the first Puss in Boots movie?  Would you like to have a drink with the surprisingly charming Death?   As ever, let me know!

The Once and Future King, T H White

**** spoilers below ****

‘Whoso pulleth out this Sword of this Stone and anvil,

Is rightwise King born of all England.’

Some stories get told over and over again.  Stories that are told often enough, become legends. T H Whites version of the King Arthur legend has been a childhood staple for decades, but does it still stand up today?  Mallory’s Le Mort d’Arthur looms large, but as tensions emerge and jostle against one another, The Once and Future King takes on a power and voice of its own. Tradition Vs Progress, Service Vs Ambition, Honour Vs Love – can these contradictions ever be reconciled?  

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Book one of four, The Sword in the Stone, takes us back to Gramarie, an ancient England  inhabited by witches, griffins and the peculiar Questing Beast.  In this lawless land, the Celts fight the Saxons, the nobles fight each other, and the Normans fight everyone.   Young Arthur – here called The Wart – is ward of Sir Ector, and lives in his castle on the edge of the wild woods.   While searching for a lost kestrel, young Wart encounters mad King Pellinore, and the great wizard Merlin (who’s even more mad).  Pellinore is a relic of the old world; the wizard offers the possibilities and challenges of a new one.  It’s the mysterious Merlin who agrees to tutor the lad, and prepare him for the challenges ahead.

Or rather the challenges behind.  Merlin – in a brilliant, heartbreaking concept – is moving backwards through time. He knows how to help Wart become King Arthur, because he has already seen him do it. While Wart was brought up on chivalric ideals, his brief time with the wizard exerts just as much influence on the man he will become.  Chivalry gives a specific code and expectation of behaviour.  Merlin doesn’t offer answers so much as ever more puzzling questions. He doesn’t clarify, he complicates.  He isn’t even in charge of his own destiny.  Doomed to be imprisoned by the treacherous Nimue, Merlin is also a man trapped by his own foreknowledge of events to come.

And so Wart’s magical education sees him transformed into various animals. He must learn not only how to swim like a fish and fly like a peregrin, but also how to communicate with these strange and wonderful creatures.  How is their society structured? What do they value?  What do they fear?  So much of what you want comes from where you are in the world.   And those that flourish aren’t always the strongest, or bravest, or even the smartest.  

The next book, The Witch in the Wood sees the Wart follow a more straightforward quest – to help Robin Hood and his Merry Men rescue captives of the dark witch Morgana.  She is one of the native Fairy folk, and woe betide any human foolish enough to cross them.  But Wart has a bronze blade and strong allies – if he learns their ways of stealth and combat, he’ll emerge victorious.  Except, it’s Kay who slays the Griffin, and gets the glory.  Wart gets a dislocated shoulder for his trouble.  Chivalry is more straightforward than diplomacy, but the results are usually messier.

Things jump forward in book three – The Ill Made Knight.  The Wart has grown into good King Arthur, and has established his Round Table at Camelot.  His righteous knights keep peace throughout the realm, and Arthur’s fame spreads far and wide.  A young lad called Lancelot seeks to serve him and become the greatest knight in the world.  While shot through with flashes of savagery, there is an aching, nostalgic quality to the first two books – like fondly remembered school holidays.  But our story is now dealing with adults, and becomes correspondingly darker.  People are even trickier to work out than animals; their motives obscure and their methods confusing, even to themselves.  Lancelot wants to serve a higher aim, but he is ultimately driven by pride and fear.  Is he doomed to failure because of his base motives?  Or is his attempt to overcome this corruption itself an act of glory?

The driving force of this story is the clash between ideals of chivalry, which demand violence in the defense of the weak, and the horror and reality of war.  Arthur tries to enforce lawful justice with the strength of his knights.  But chivalry is by nature competitive, which ultimately creates division.  Arthur then tries to use strength to serve godly justice, by sending his knights to find the Holy Grail.  This ends badly too – the violent, wordly knights are unworthy of the divine.  

Arthur thus concludes that violence and justice cannot be reconciled on earth.  Any use of force will always lead to rule by strength, rather than justice.  No earthly soul can completely or successfully serve God, or bring his law into the corrupt and conflicted world. 

And so, with a sense of inevitability, the final book – The Candle in the Wind – sees the end of the Round Table, and the destruction of King Arthur.  We are left with a potent final image of an elderly Arthur, worn out and weary, alone in his tent on the eve of battle.  While he is doomed, his legacy endures – the best anyone can hope for, says Merlin.

The strength of White’s story is his complete lack of interest in why people fall short, or do bad things. He takes failure as a given.  Not only because Arthur is destined to die, to see his Round Table broken up, its ideals scattered.  But because it’s human nature.  The pure and glorious Galahad barely gets a look in here.  It is with ugly, conflicted Lancelot that the story really soars.  

Our Lancelot is no shining paragon brought low by a scheming, lustful queen; but a man riven by conflict, aware of his base, human nature and appalled by it.  Determined to hone his crude sinew into a tool for justice and righteousness on earth, he channels all his self-loathing and doubt into a determination to do the right thing.  Which he then entirely fails to do.  

Perhaps that’s the paradox of every human heart.  Only those who understand sin can hope to avoid it.  Yet the only way to understand sin is to experience it.  Not even to act on it, but to feel it inside, needling you.  And knowing you’re lost because you’ve already let the idea in.  To look ahead at the damage you’ll do, and do it anyway, then grieve for what you’ve done.

Why do Lancelot and Guenever have an affair?  Because they love each other.  Why does Arthur sleep with Morgeuse?  Because he was young and she was hot.  There are no clean hands in this story.  Those who try to navigate through without creating too much carnage are the ones we should pity, and those who aim for as much carnage as possible are the ones we should condemn.  

I’d often find myself shaking my head at Lancelot and Guenever, yet the image of the middle-aged knight brushing her long silver hair would warm a harder heart than mine.  Intriguingly we never see Arthur and Guenever alone together.  Is this because the lovers are just more interesting?  More sympathetic?  More sinful?  Or can the myth of Arthur not stand that kind of scrutiny?  Real people are so very complicated.  At one point even White throws up his hands and concedes: ‘It is very hard to write a real person’.  Perhaps that’s less an admission of failure than a fitting conclusion to a great story: no myth, however long lived, can match the glory and the folly of the human soul.  

Clever and melancholy, The Once and Future King stands up as a fitting re-imagining of a famous and thrilling tale.  More than that, it’s a spiritual successor to Mallory’s opus.  Like Merlin, we already know how the story will end.  But White’s masterful telling makes the journey worthwhile.

What did you think?  Were you underwhelmed by the barely-there Morgana?    Would you actually like to meet Merlin? (I’m not so sure) How did you feel about Lancelot and Guenever? As ever, let me know!