Margot Robbie, homegrown Hollywood powerhouse, and Greta Gerwig, the Oscarnominated filmmaker behind Barbie, the movie everybody wants to talk about, are grasping for a metaphor. How to describe this film, a blockbuster with an impeccable cinematic pedigree and a cast which is, well, chef ‘s kiss, that wrestles with such weighty subjects as feminism, identity and the human/toy relationship? “Barbie contains multitudes” could have been the tagline. (They went with: Barbie is everything.)
“You know at the end of the year when all the awardsy films are coming out and you're, like, ‘I know they're going to be good, but I gotta sit through six very …’” Robbie grimaces. “I don't really feel like I wanna watch something sad.” She is sitting in a hotel suite in sunny Sydney on the first stop of Barbie's globe-trotting promotional tour. Robbie is wearing the second of three very pink Versace dresses of the day; she will later change into a bespoke recreation of Claudia Schiffer's iconic ice-capades mini for the Vogue Australia Barbie party that evening. Opposite her, enjoying a lobster roll, is Gerwig. She is also wearing pink; a perfectly pastel blazer. If you're going to talk about Barbie, it would almost be rude not to, right?
is “seriously fun”, as Gerwig puts it. “It's dessert,” suggests Robbie, “but so much more than dessert.” Gerwig pipes in: “It's a steak ice-cream sandwich!” Robbie adds: “It's a feast of all your
