Barbie: (Mark Ronson/Andrew Wyatt) In the age of
woke progressivism, writer and director Greta Gerwig managed the
impossible: adapt Mattel's Barbie fashion dolls into a billion-dollar
grossing cinematic phenomenon. With no lack of the color pink, 2023's
Barbie navigates the minefields surrounding the concept by making
it ponderously self-aware. The titular character, perfect in her fantasy
Barbieland with the hopeless Ken doll, suddenly experiences an
existential crisis, and the two leads travel to the real world and
interact with actual Mattel employees to help them discover new purposes
in life. The comedy is filled with enough sociopolitical controversy to
stir unrest in audiences at both ends of the belief spectrum, but
ultimately the movie's left-leaning tilt is a defining characteristic.
Men dragged into watching the event were met with an equal amount of
commentary about patriarchal mores, as the movie affords Ken no less of
a journey. The soundtrack for the stunningly successful film proved to
be a popular powerhouse itself, mainly because Gerwig sought a wide
range of popular artists to write and perform new songs specifically
tailored to specific scenes in the movie. While the Ken character does
receive musical numbers to himself,
Barbie is more of a
third-person, song-driven narrative rather than a musical for on-screen
singing. The director employed seasoned songwriter and producer Mark
Ronson to coordinate these songs, co-writing several of them along with
collaborator Andrew Wyatt. The two had won an Academy Award for
composing the super-popular "Shallow" from
A Star is Born a few
years earlier. Interestingly, Gerwig had originally hired composer
Alexandre Desplat to write the score for
Barbie. The two had
collaborated successfully on
Little Women, but Desplat bowed out
of
Barbie at some point. In retrospect, it's not difficult to see
that the project was one completely ill-suited to Desplat, though it
would have been humorous to hear him adapt his trademark sound into that
which ultimately succeeded him in the film.
Rather than hire another veteran film composer for
Barbie, Gerwig asked Ronson and Wyatt to write the underscore for
the film themselves. The task was largely new for the pair, and they
were initially quite nervous about handling the task. Fortunately for
them, the bulk of the film's running time, and certainly all the most
obvious scenes featuring music, is handled by the songs. The situation
was similar in ways to the comedic approach facing Leo Birenberg and
Zach Robinson for
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story the previous year,
though the parody element is diminished in the equation here. Ronson and
Wyatt had two strategic options for the not-insignificant amount of
score material required in between the song placements: write music
serving as a straight instrumental extension of the songs or attempt to
create a narrative within the score alone. Birenberg and Robinson had
selected the latter approach for their parody, but Ronson and Wyatt
instead got lost halfway in between. Their score can't decide the extent
to which it uses the songs' melodies and instrumental personalities as a
guiding beacon, which leaves some cues dripping with song connections
while other stumble in their attempt to define a distinct, score-only
narrative. Some of the better (and appropriate) song melodies don't make
it into the score while others are over-utilized. Motifs largely unique
to the score, meanwhile, don't have enough character on their own to
serve an overarching purpose. The score is adequate at every moment, and
it's even quite clever at times, but it fails to really live up to the
potential that it could have enjoyed if the songs had more cohesively
driven its spotting. The songs co-written by Ronson and Wyatt are more
likely to be included in the score, and, as to be expected, some of them
have more malleable and memorable melodies to adapt. Five or six of the
roughly twenty songs featured in the film are considered tentpoles of
the musical overall. They don't really have much to do with each other
because of their disparate creation process, but the soundtrack as a
whole enjoys a positive, somewhat 1990's-driven demeanor with only the
three Ken songs providing a dose of toxic masculinity to steer away from
the target demographic.
The most important six songs of
Barbie are all
adapted at least once into Ronson and Wyatt's score. The opening credits
song performed by Lizzo, "Pink," is a vital bookend, a straight
instrumental version of the song heard early in "Pink ("Barbie" Opening
Theme)" and a quick allusion at the start of "Beach Off" before
returning with its original spirit in "Deprogramming" and lightly at
1:14 into "An Ending." Equally vital is Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night,"
its double hand clap effects in particular applied liberally throughout
the score. Its instrumention informs the second half of "Creation of
Barbie," lends its clapping to "Stairway to Weird Barbie," and, with
fantastic parody application, guides a masculine version reworked well
in "Mattel;" the synthetic brass is disappointing in "Mattel," but the
cue is a conceptual winner. Representing the existential aspect of the
story is Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?," which translates to the
score's conversational cues with as little excitement as Eilish's
typical performance. Very subdued on piano in "Bus Stop Billie," this
idea is turned into an almost Desplat-like, whistled waltz in "Meeting
Ruth." It's extremely solemn in the underwhelming "I Don't Have an
Ending" and returns to original form in "What Was I Made For?
(Epilogue)" before the song itself is featured second in the end
credits. Of the three Ken songs, "I'm Just Ken" is one of two performed
actor Ryan Gosling himself, and this rock ballad's chord progressions
dominate "You Failed Me!," though the instrumentals are distorted badly
in the mix. Figuring less obviously into the score is Sam Smith's
impressive "Man I Am," which has one of the more compelling melodic
lines from any of the songs. It drives the initial personality of "Beach
Off" but devolves into a Beach Boys imitation, and echoes of the
descending lines from the song guide "Ken Thinks." For a more
action-oriented connection, the song "Speed Drive," performed by Charli
XCX, propels the percussive rhythms and bassline in "Lose These
Chuckleheads." A few songs are used multiple times in the film rather
than figuring them into the score, including two featuring only on a
deluxe-only version of the song album: covers of 1989 song "Closer to
Fine" (Indigo Girls) and Gosling's performance of the 1997 song "Push."
The absence of prominence for these songs in the score is odd.
Among the other songs in
Barbie, there are four
that probably should have figured more directly into the surrounding
underscore if Ronson and Wyatt had taken a better path of pure
adaptation. The situation with Nicki Minaj's "Barbie World" is
dissatisfying all-around; this, the first end credits song, is not a
good replacement for the classic 1990's song "Barbie Girl" (despite
samples of it overlaid here), which would have been a better inclusion
if not for likely interference from legal issues historically pitting
its performer, Aqua, against Mattel back in the day. Three other songs
that would have been good candidates to influence the score include Tame
Impala's "Journey to the Real World," which is not adapted into the
score cue "Send Me Through the Portal" for whatever reason, Haim's
"Home," with its compelling lyricism, and Ava Max's "Choose Your
Fighter," a spirited 1990's Ace of Base imitation with a bassline that
might influence "Alan vs Kens," though the personality is not the same.
The resulting score is about as wayward as the song collection overall,
some parts really engrossing while others lag behind. As previously
mentioned, the conversational cues are badly underplayed compared to
surrounding material, partly due to their steady reliance on the rather
sour Eilish song. The final moments of the score's narrative are
particularly hindered by a lack of any resonance whatsoever, Ronson and
Wyatt seemingly content to let these scenes sink in without any dramatic
swell whatsoever from the score. These eight minutes in "An Ending," "I
Don't Have an Ending," and "What Was I Made For? (Epilogue)" offer
absolutely no catharsis to bring the characters home musically. This is
where Ronson and Wyatt face their greatest challenges; the score simply
has no real narrative on its own. When relying upon its references to
the songs, the score is fine. In fact, these are some of the best
moments along the way. But even the tone of the score doesn't manage to
capture the upbeat spirit of the songs throughout, despite offering some
of the same background vocals at times. A surprising lack of charm
exists in the performances outside of the most extroverted renditions of
the songs' instrumentals. There was great opportunity for a tender and
heart-warming score to develop from this film's narrative, and Ronson
and Wyatt simply didn't find that right touch.
The score's construction is all over the place, at
times symphonic but occasionally sounding cheaply synthetic. The brass
in a few cues has a roughly rendered presence, and there are few moments
of notable woodwinds. The soundscape generated by Ronson and Wyatt for
Barbie is mostly defined by strings, synths, and electric bass,
resulting in a contemporary ambience not entirely unexpected for the
songwriters. There are some motifs explored by the composers that don't
seem to originate from any of the songs, but only one has a lasting
impact. A mostly keyboarded, descending mystery motif is reminiscent of
Jerry Goldsmith's
The 'Burbs and consolidates in the latter half
of "Stairway to Weird Barbie." It dances behind melodramatic chord
progressions in "Thoughts of Death," co-exists with another motif in
"Send Me Through the Portal," and returns at 0:31 into "An Ending" in
lighter shades. A likeable determination motif of sorts is heard in the
latter half of "Send Me Through the Portal" and represents perhaps the
best lyricism from the score; this cue still could have used a reference
to one of the appropriate song melodies instead, though. Finally, a
somewhat inept love theme has trouble defining itself in "Warmth of Your
Gaze," perhaps purposefully vague given the romantic challenges in the
story. The moments of outright parody in the score for
Barbie are
obvious but not numerous. Highlighting two key moments is the
ever-popular "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss in "Creation
of Barbie" (a straight orchestral rendition) and "Ken Makes a Discovery"
(a blend of symphony and funk). Hints of "Hail to the Chief" by James
Sanderson meander late in "Pink ("Barbie" Opening Theme)" for the
President Barbie concept. These cues contribute to a decent but somewhat
underwhelming score for
Barbie that can never seem to decide how
heavily to rely upon the songs. The score's only average appeal was
likely a result sealed during the spotting stage of production, with the
Eilish song's outsized influence a poor choice given its lack of warmth
for any of those adaptations. The songs are also a very hit-and-miss
prospect. The whole soundtrack requires a combined, chronological song
and score presentation to best appreciate. The release of the two halves
on separate albums defies the fact that all the music for
Barbie
is too synergistic for such a release. Film score collectors will find
little value to the score-only album even though it serves its purpose
well enough.
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