Despite the uplifting nature of its trailer, the musical numbers performed in sequins, and the mass amounts of hot pink throughout the film, we are all aware that Barbie will have something much deeper going on at the heart of it. Greta Gerwig is a genius director and has thrown in a tonne of symbolism, metaphors, and allusions to classical works into this film, one of which, funnily enough, connects it to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Despite many pitting the two films against one another, and with the same release date and drastically different tones it’s hard not to, both films have embraced one another. Both cast and directors alike have spoken highly of their box-office competition with Nolan telling IGN that the competition is “terrific” and Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy also saying,
“I’ll be going to see Barbie 100% — I can’t wait to see it. I think it’s just great for the industry and for audiences that we have two amazing films by amazing filmmakers coming out on the same day. Yeah, you can spend the whole day in the cinema — what’s better than that?”
Gerwig has also enthused about the double billing, telling theatre-goers, “It’s all love — double up, double up twice.” The director also recently revealed that there is an interesting connection between the two films, through an Easter egg she threw in there that may pass under many people’s radar, though not the famed scientist were he alive to watch the movie.
Gerwig threw in a reference to the infamous author Marcel Proust, once during a scene with Margot Robbie’s Barbie, and another when Will Ferrel’s character, CEO of Mattel, states, ” Remember Proust Barbie? That did not sell well.” The director explained why she added this in, telling Associated Press in an interview,
“In “Remembrance of Things Past,” in “Swann’s Way,” he is literally thrown back into his childhood through the taste of the madeleine. I thought, well, that’ll be a nice Easter egg for one person.”
The connection stems from Oppenheimer himself being a big fan of Proust, telling American writer and friend Haakon Chevalier that reading Proust’s Memory of Things Past was one of the great experiences of his life. With the mention of the author on more than one occasion in Gerwig’s Barbie it may be likely that Oppenheimer would have given the film his seal of approval.
Both Barbie and Oppenheimer hit theatres tomorrow, July 21, now it’s just a case of deciding what order to watch them in.