Meryl Streep has hailed Greta Gerwig’s Barbie as being the film that “saved” the movies and “all of our jobs”.
The triple Oscar winner was appearing at the Palm Springs Film Awards, where Billie Eilish and Finneas accepted the Chairmen’s Award for their song ‘What Was I Made For?’, which is also shortlisted for the Best Original Song award at this year’s Oscars.
“I just want to say to Billie and Finneas that you have delivered the Barbie love bomb,” Streep said from the stage.
Going on to talk about the runaway success of the film, she added: “You’ve saved the movies last summer, and all of our jobs. You’ve delivered joy to countless generations and genders of people, and you should surf that wave, kids, until you’re old and deserve to be jaded like me.”
Barbie was the highest grossing film worldwide in 2023, with $1.4billion (£1.1billion), and is currently the 14th highest grossing film of all time.
In her acceptance speech at the same awards show, Billie Eilish talked about the “dark episode” that she went through before writing ‘What Was I Made For?’.
She said: “I would really like to say that this award and any recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness, the feeling of existential dread and feeling like, what’s the point, why am I here and why am I doing this?”
Eilish went on to discuss how she “was in a dark episode and things didn’t make sense in life” when she was asked to write a song for Barbie. “I just didn’t understand what the point was and why you would keep going. [I was] questioning everything in the world.”
In a four-star review of Barbie, NME‘s Alex Flood wrote: “The script contains unexpected subtlety, particularly during the tender moments which pack an emotional punch. Presumably, part of Mattel’s motive for bringing Barbie to the big screen was changing her outdated image of rigid beauty ideals and unrealistic body conformism. Gerwig is clever enough to deliver these with self-awareness and some sarcastic jokes (Mirren thanking Barbie for ending misogyny is a highlight), meaning the balance between reality and commercial is never lost.”
It was also recently named NME‘s seventh best movie of the year.