Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was, somehow, a movie that was all things to all people. It was a bright and colorful movie that was every bit the movie you would expect from the name Barbie, while also being a great deal more. It's amazing that it works as well as it does. What’s more, it seems that even the people working on the film were far from sure, as Dua Lipa admits nobody knew what to expect.
Speaking, with Vanity Fair, Dua Lipa says the experience of making Barbie was “crazy” because of the wild variation that was going on. She has spoken previously about how she found time to record the song “Dance the Night” for the Barbie soundtrack but in the middle of touring she also became part of the Barbie cast and appeared briefly in the film herself. She called the movie a “secret,” which she felt like she knew, but nobody else did. The singer explained…
It was a crazy back-to-back! It was like, okay, today I’m going to go and put on four different colored wigs and a mermaid tail, and tomorrow I’m going to fly and get up onstage again and do something completely different. I felt like I was holding the biggest secret in the world from the song to the little cameo, which was fun and exciting.
"Dance the Night" is just one of the big songs in Barbie, which is a movie that has made an impact on the music world as much as it has the movie world. The song is one of the most fun parts of the first act, leading into the first big emotional twist. And it's maybe not even the biggest song associated with the movie which has a killer Billie Eilish track, and of course, Ryan Gosling's Ken song, which recently got a Christmas version.
But while Dua Lipa may have felt she was in on a secret, that doesn’t mean any of it was going to actually work. Barbie is equal parts celebration of an iconic piece of pop culture, and an interrogation of that item’s place, and impact, on the world. The singer says that nobody knew quite what to expect from the Barbie movie, but she credits Barbie writer/director Greta Gerwig with making it all work. She continued…
The thing is, Greta just really defied all odds. Nobody knew what to expect from the Barbie film and for it to be able to hit so many chords, from it being so fun and happy and funny, to then really hitting the heartstrings and touching on something really emotional and having you, especially as a woman, contemplate your place and what’s expected of you.
Barbie is the biggest hit at the box office this year, and it’s also racking up early award season nominations. It’s impressive when any movie can do both, but Barbie is a movie that has proven it’s capable of doing just about everything. Just like Barbie herself.
