If you haven’t heard of the Barbie movie, you have clearly been successfully living off grid for the last year. It has been a box office phenomenon - gaining great reviews, causing lively debate, and becoming the highest grossing Warner Bros release ever, making $1.4 billion worldwide. It’s a film about an outdated plastic doll. How does this make any sense?

Well, it’s not, of course, really ‘about’ a plastic doll. Writer-director Greta Gerwig (director of two previous OC screenings - Lady Bird and Little Women) has managed to make Barbie very funny and smart, as well as dealing with some surprisingly deep issues including the nature of modern feminism, the patriarchy, and our search for happiness in a material world. Set in an ideal Barbie universe, our eponymous heroine (perfectly played by Margo Robbie) has a meaning of life crisis, and sets off to the real world to discover herself. Ever hopeful Ken (a brilliant Ryan Gosling) tags along and almost steals the show. And as well as the very sharp script and abundance of cameos, the design of Barbie is just fabulous.

Mark Kermode gave it a four star review in the Observer: “It’s a riotously entertaining candy-coloured feminist fable that manages simultaneously to celebrate, satirise and deconstruct its happy-plastic subject. Audiences will be delighted.”