New & Now: The Barbenheimer experience

Of all the things to temporarily bring a broken country together, who could have guessed?

It is dangerously, hellishly, rip-your-own-skin-off-while-shrieking hot, and as I do every July 27th I silently apologize to my mother for having to be nine months pregnant with me in this shit.

We are on our way out to experience Barbenheimer, the only bright spot in another relentlessly bleak summer. Though the current mood of the entire country is so volatile we can no longer even agree that a President shouldn’t engage in sedition and treason, somehow, of all things, millions of us have come together on the subject of whether or not Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s light satire Barbie would make a good double feature. In fact, so many people concurred that, yes, that’s a terrific idea, that when we go to see it less than a week after release to celebrate my birthday, it feels like we’re late to the party.

Though I made a face approximating that of a toddler tasting a lemon for the first time when Barbie was initially announced, it became apparent that it would be the only bright spot in another relentlessly bleak summer. Of course I’m going to feast on the succor of a cheerfully candy-colored movie that both reminds me of a time when summer didn’t immediately equate to mass wildlife death (except for mosquitoes, they’re living their best lives) and apparently also offers smart and insightful commentary about feminism and toxic masculinity. As for Oppenheimer, I’m a sucker for a good tortured genius flick, let alone one with sound design reportedly cranked up so loud audiences are losing fillings out of their teeth.

The only debate that matters about the Barbenheimer experience is over which one to see first. We have opted to watch Oppenheimer first, reasoning that, like choosing to receive bad news before good news, Barbie will soothe the existential blow of Oppenheimer. It is a Thursday afternoon, and both movies are sold out, which seems impossible, particularly right now, when the entire film industry, even before both writers and actors went on strike, seems to be hanging on by a thread, and even can’t-miss releases like another Fast and the Furious movie are struggling to find an audience. No one is entirely sure what the problem is, exactly: maybe it just hasn’t (and possibly never will) recover from COVID-19, or maybe people are just exhausted with the inherent laziness of franchises, sequels and multiverses. But it’s bad, and it’s depressing.

Today, however, for a 3 hour long biopic about a theoretical physicist, the theater is packed and buzzing. People are really excited to be here. We’ve sprung for tickets for the 70mm screening, and we’re sitting in the front row, the blast zone, baby. One of the trailers is for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, which seems like an odd choice, but I suppose when you consider that the ninja turtles are the product of toxic waste it makes perfect sense.

I don’t know what I expect from Oppenheimer when I go into it, but it definitely isn’t a non-linear thriller about both the creation of the atomic bomb, and Robert Oppenheimer later being railroaded by professional jealousy and pettiness into losing his government security clearance and credibility before a kangaroo court. Christopher Nolan has performed kind of a miracle in directing a three-hour-long movie that is 90% talking, and yet it breezes right by. It’s Roger Ebert’s theory that “no good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough” at work, and I’m so absorbed by it that I don’t even notice when the server puts the check for our $10 mozzarella sticks on the table.

Even if you do find yourself bored, a fun game to pass the time is spotting the various “that guys” in the cast, like Where’s Waldo for character actors. David Krumholtz, Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, David Dastmalchian, Dane DeHaan (playing a real hateable piece of shit), Jack Quaid, Alex Wolff, Rami Malek, and, for about nine seconds, James Urbaniak all show up. Benny Safdie is in it too, talking in the voice of Henry Kissinger, and while that seems like that should be goofy as hell, it surprisingly isn’t. I spend part of the nearly two hours we have to kill between Oppenheimer and Barbie reading the Wikipedia pages of all the real-life people they played, and wondering how many of them later died of cancer (surprisingly few!).

We leave the theater after Oppenheimer to have dinner, then come back to a party atmosphere. The lobby is filled with more people wearing pink than a Susan G. Komen event, and I suddenly feel self-conscious about the fact that the only pink article of clothing I am wearing is a t-shirt with Garfield on it. One woman is wearing a pink cowboy hat over a maroon hijab. Another is wearing an entirely pink business suit. There are pink dresses, pink blouses, pink pants, and pink shoes. I wish I had purchased the most outrageously pink, frilly dress I could find, even if I would have looked like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

We are, again, in the front row blast zone, baby, and we again get the trailer for the Ninja Turtles movie, though it makes sense in a different way this time. I expect to enjoy Barbie, and I do, very much. I do not expect to cry at the end of Barbie, and I do, like a fuckin’ asshole who can’t keep her emotions in check. I have not openly wept at a movie like this since watching Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, a movie so obsessed with death that Edgar Allan Poe would watch it and think “Lighten up, man.”

Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s packed script, when it could have been used just to sell more toys, covers not only the aforementioned feminism and toxic masculinity, but also the harsh realities of growing up, and mother-daughter relationships. The breathtaking production design is full of nods to Barbies both past and present, and in the background of Barbieland is the spectacular early 80s Dream House. Approximately 75 years ago, I received a Dream House from my mother, who was bad with money and often bought gifts to compensate for the affection she couldn’t show. I don’t talk to her anymore.

Like I said, I didn’t expect Barbie to make me cry.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling both earn the ample praise they’re received, but I’m more taken with Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie, whose hacked-off hair and crayon-scrawled face speak of a hard past in which she wasn’t treated as lovingly as the other Barbies. Banished to a bizarre, slapdash house that reminds me of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse¹, she’s treated as both a pariah and a source of wisdom, and acknowledges both with resigned humor. “You’re either brainwashed or weird and ugly,” Barbie laments, to which Weird Barbie replies “Sing it, sister.”

I’m not saying I’m exactly like Weird Barbie, but I understand her.

The audience exits the theater after Barbie ends, like a great flood of Pepto-Bismol pouring down the escalator. There’s a giant Barbie box for photo ops in the lobby, and a small line has developed outside it, though everyone is polite and laughing over how silly the whole thing is. I decline to get my picture taken, because I never like getting my picture taken, and immediately regret it when we leave. It’s like I completely ignored the movie’s message, that who you are is enough, you’re always enough.

It’s still sickeningly hot out, the air thick like syrup, but at least it’s dark now and almost bearable. We’re carried on the high of seeing two great movies in one day, maybe the best movies of the year, and everything feels a little more alive, like good art is supposed to make you feel. When we reach the corner of DeKalb Avenue, we spot the woman wearing a pink cowboy hat over a hijab. “I love your hat,” my daughter exclaims.

The woman looks at her and smiles. “I love your whole outfit.”

The light changes, and we cross the street, as she disappears into the night.

1. As I write this, Paul Reubens has passed away, and I’m not entirely sure I’ve processed that yet. Emotions, man, who needs ‘em?