Warning: There are obviously HUGE spoilers for Barbie ahead!
Hi, yes, hello. By now, you've definitely heard about the magic that is Barbie. Opening only a week ago, the movie has grossed $500 million globally as of right now, breaking countless other box office records along the way.
Directed by Greta Gerwig and cowritten by Greta and Noah Baumbach, Barbie follows, well, Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she ventures into the Real World after a series of strange things (like FLAT FEET) start to happen to her in Barbie Land.
While in the Real World, Barbie learns that Barbie isn't as beloved as she once thought, while Ken (Ryan Gosling) learns about the patriarchy (and horses).
The whole movie is hilarious, especially when Barbie returns to Barbie Land and finds out that Ken has brought the patriarchy there. However, arguably the best moments of Barbie come toward the end, as Barbie confronts her womanhood with the help of Gloria (America Ferrera) and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt).
This all leads into the final scenes in Barbie when, after stopping the Kens, Barbie wonders what her place in the new Barbie Land is and she ultimately accompanies Ruth (Rhea Perlman) and reveals she'd love to become human, saying, "I want to be part of the people that make meaning, not the thing that’s made. I want to do the imagining, I don’t wanna be the idea."
Then, Barbie takes Ruth's hands, closes her eyes, and envisions a montage of women of all ages, set to Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?"
The entire moment is truly when Barbie turns into a brilliant film, which is no surprise because Greta has been beautifully delivering big moments about womanhood, relationships, and more in all of her movies since Frances Ha.
While the montage of all the real women is incredibly poignant while watching Barbie, what makes it even better is that the sequence is filled with videos from the cast and crew's home movies.
"I had this idea of, like, I wanted that moment in the film to be truly made by the people who made the movie," Greta revealed in a recent interview.
She continued, saying, "So I sort of said to everyone — cast, crew, everyone from editorial, anyone — 'If you have things that you're comfortable with sharing, this is an idea.'"
"We got the most beautiful moments from people's lives. And it was people's friends, aunts, mothers, daughters, sisters, it was just extraordinary," Greta said.
In fact, interviewer Andrew Freund said that one of his friends, who was also a good friend of Scott Evans, who plays a Ken, is featured in the montage. And Greta's reaction to finding this out is genuinely the sweetest thing.
Margot also revealed that there are some of her own home movies featured in this Barbie sequence. Alongside some clips of her friend's baby, one of Margot's friends actually makes a pretty standout appearance.
In an interview with Capital, Margot said, "One of my best friends, I was filming her on her wedding day getting ready, so when there's a girl [that's] putting blush on and then winks, and then there's fireworks, that's my friend Steph. I shot that on my Super 8."
Both Greta and Margot said that including this moment at the end of Barbie really helped add a personal touch to such a huge studio film, with Greta adding that it helped ground the movie overall.
"I think for me, with something like Barbie, that's such a behemoth of an international brand, an icon, it can be something that feels so impersonal, [the montage] was a way to be like, 'This was only ever made by human beings,'" Greta explained.
She continued, saying, "Movies, dolls...human beings make them. They're not handed down from on high, they're just made. There was something about Ruth Handler, inventor of Barbie, this idea that she made the doll, Barbie, for Barbara, her daughter, and that just human connection."
"Every film I make has to come from a personal place," Greta added.
The idea for the montage featuring people from the cast and crew's lives came about because Greta's always wanted to find a way to very deliberately thank all of the people who help bring a movie to life.
She said that she's always wanted a credit in her movie to be "A film by" and then list everyone who worked on the movie, instead of it just saying, "A film by Greta Gerwig," and while she wasn't "allowed" to do that, this was the next best thing.
I absolutely ADORE this personal touch that Greta and Margot thought to include at the end of Barbie. In my opinion, it's genuinely one of the best moments in the whole film.
What did you think of Barbie? Tell us all your thoughts and feelings about the new movie in the comments below!
And come hang out with everyone else who is screaming, crying, and throwing up about Barbie in BuzzFeed’s iOS app. Heck, even Allan is there.
