(CNN) — If something particularly notable occurred between late July and December of final yr, I can’t bear in mind it. All I do know is pink.
I used to be too busy spending my time with “Barbie.” I’ve seen the movie upwards of 20 occasions because it premiered on July 21, 2023. Half of these viewings have been in theaters with packed, enthusiastic crowds bedecked in pinks of all shades. It was elegant.
Watching “Barbie” a lot defined the back half of my 2023. It was a dependable escape and a persistently good time, a cultural hyperlink I shared with practically everybody in my life and nearly one thing like an id I may select myself.
I’ve discovered no such “Barbie”-level cinematic occasion in 2024. And we may certainly use it: This summer time is decidedly bleak. The political local weather is apocalyptic. It’s too sizzling to do nearly something apart from go to the films.
Revisiting “Barbie” a yr on, I spotted I really like the movie lower than the phenomenon. The summer time of “Barbie” was one in every of my happiest, after I felt really linked to my fellow people. Watching the movie now solely makes me miss my time in Barbie Land, at the beginning acquired actual.
I had so badly needed it to be good.
From the second “Barbie” was introduced, I used to be hopeful that the movie would ship, and each improvement I may discover on this mysterious movie solely made me extra keen: The primary photograph of Ryan Gosling as Ken, trying like a bleach-blond, claymation model of himself; seemingly incongruous casting announcements for Will Ferrell, half the solid of “Intercourse Training,” John Cena; paparazzi pictures of Margot Robbie crying on a curb in a pink cowgirl ensemble. What would this movie be?
I excitedly watched as social media jokes a couple of “Barbie”-”Oppenheimer” double characteristic (“Barbenheimer”) was an precise occasion individuals began to purchase tickets for. I wrote a primer for learn how to finest watch the 2 movies collectively whereas obsessively looking for interviews, promos, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks — something that might quench my “Barbie” thirst.
Lastly, the day earlier than it hit theaters, I squeezed right into a crowded screening for workers of Warner Bros. Discovery (dad or mum firm of each Warner Bros., which launched “Barbie,” and CNN).
I liked it a lot that I watched it once more, twice, that Saturday, bookending my sole viewing of “Oppenheimer.” (Sorry, Nolan.) Practically everybody within the showings for each movies was in a shade of pink.
After which I simply stored watching. I took my associate, dad and mom and numerous buddies to see it on completely different events, hoping to listen to them chortle when Ken tossed Barbie’s “Ice Capades fairly observe swimsuit and dazzling present skirt” off the aspect of her dream home or sniff again tears when Barbie walked into her human life for the primary time. And I noticed it a couple of occasions on my own, too, lastly snug to be alone in a movie show as a result of it didn’t really feel lonely.
There’s a lot to like: An obscure joke about Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, Issa Rae’s pronunciation of “The God-FA-ther,” little pretend seagulls dangling over the Barbie Land seashore’s arduous sand, the heartbreaking recognition that passes throughout Robbie’s face when her Barbie is aware of she now not belongs in her plastic world.
However I liked “Barbie” principally as a result of watching it again and again, at all times with packed homes, made me really feel just like the one who was turning into extra human.
“Barbie” is a film about being a girl however much more about being an individual — eager to belong on the planet, even when that world is routinely merciless and unsympathetic and brings emotions out of you which might be perplexing and disturbing. The true world shreds up all of the plans you had on your life, takes the guileless optimism of your youth and melts it like a plastic doll in a sizzling automobile. It typically turns you into Depression Barbie.
“Barbie” makes it look straightforward to rebuild your self amid melancholy — it simply takes a rousing speech from America Ferrara and her bratty tween daughter who’s beginning to come round on the doll she earlier declared a fascist. However forcing your self to reclaim your house in that merciless world is maybe the hardest and most important step in now not being Despair Barbie.
Watching “Barbie” time and again nudged me out of an isolation I hadn’t even realized I’d imposed. Sitting in a completely packed theater for the primary time, actually, for the reason that pandemic began, surrounded by individuals of all ages ready to be transported and greeting one another with “Hello, Barbie” — I’d’ve thought-about it cringeworthy as soon as, however I acquired onboard.
“Barbie” grew to become some extent of connection I may share with everybody in my life, from new buddies to my hairdresser to bartenders. If I didn’t have something to say, I may at all times speak about “Barbie.” We may focus on whether or not we thought Ferrara’s second-act monologue was a reductive distillation of feminism 101. Whether or not there was too much Ken in a movie referred to as “Barbie.” Whether or not it was any good in any respect. Perhaps they’d watch it once more or possibly they’d write it off eternally, however they at all times had one thing to say.
Watching “Barbie” grew to become a behavior.
I acquired sick in September, conveniently, the identical day “Barbie” grew to become accessible to buy on demand. I watched it on a loop all through my illness, falling asleep to Helen Mirren’s narrator and waking as much as “Handler-comma-Barbara” signing in at her gynecologist’s workplace.
I threw it on usually in October to arrange for my Halloween costume: I used to be dressing up because the bespectacled little lady within the film’s Kubrickian prologue who smashes her child doll to bits after she lays eyes on Robbie’s plastic princess for the primary time. And I watched it twice on Christmas Day, as soon as with director Greta Gerwig’s commentary and later the theatrical lower with my begrudging grandfather. I had a sense that everybody round me was beginning to really feel “Barbie” fatigue. As soon as Gosling completed his dazzling Oscars performance of “I’m Just Ken,” “Barbie” fever formally ended. I by no means needed it to.
However whenever you always watch and rewatch one thing, its contents ultimately cease mattering or registering altogether — the script and plotting and performances all soften collectively right into a comforting soup you’ve slurped so many occasions that you could’t actually style it anymore. So I put “Barbie” away for some time, surprising buddies who’d come to know me because the preeminent “Barbie” fan of the Atlanta space. (Certainly, I joked, I had contributed to its billion-dollar box office with all my repeat viewings.)
After I rewatched it final week for the primary time in months, on my own, I used to be struck by how bittersweet all of it felt.
There isn’t a movie equal this yr for “Barbie,” no cultural phenomenon by which to kind a connection, irrespective of how contrived. I’m feeling extra remoted from my fellow people this yr than final, and no movie show journey has fairly made up for that — even at a displaying for this yr’s nice field workplace success, “Inside Out 2,” the viewers was muted, resigned.
I miss it. Watching “Barbie” now makes me wistful for the primary few occasions I noticed it (minus the incessant trailers for “Gran Turismo,” bear in mind these?) and felt like I belonged simply by sitting within the viewers.
It’s a film, and I’m an grownup. It didn’t educate me something I didn’t find out about being a girl or human. However it was one thing I may wholeheartedly love, this foolish film that introduced individuals collectively, in love or in hate, to the air-conditioned movie show in the midst of the summer time and gave us a Matchbox Twenty musical interlude.
Perhaps there gained’t be one other “Barbie”-level occasion for a very long time, one which dominates the cultural dialog for months, drives every kind of moviegoers to the theater to expertise the pink fantasia for themselves and drowns out real-world darkness. However we’ll at all times have our “Barbie” summer time.