The Many Eras of Barbie

“This is the best day ever,” says Barbie to Barbie in Barbie, the bubblegum blockbuster out in theaters Thursday. “And so was yesterday, and so is tomorrow.” The living is easy when you’re a doll in a dream house, each day perfectly the same: wake up, greet your friends, cruise the strip in a convertible, smile wide. Do it enough, and you could even become president. But in the movie, which stars Margot Robbie and was directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie realizes that something is amiss in the universe when all those best days ever stop blending together and something highly foreign to her—change, irrepressible change—starts to creep in.