The brilliant career of director Greta Gerwig and the milestone she just reached with Barbie

This weekend Barbie, the 1959 pink comedy about the famous doll and a commercial phenomenon ever since, became one of 52 movies in history to gross more than $1 billion at the box office.

But it marks the first time that milestone has been reached by a film directed exclusively by a woman.

And that woman’s name is Greta Gerwig.

Gerwig, who started her career directing rock-bottom films, has had a hectic career not only as a director, but also as an actress.

But it’s been behind the camera where the American director has achieved many of her achievements.

In addition to Barbie’s impressive box-office success, Gerwig was also the fifth woman in Hollywood history to earn a Best Director nomination at the Oscars.

He did it with his 2017 semi-autobiographical film Lady Bird. Following the success of this film, played by Saoirse Ronan, he devoted himself to the adaptation of Louise Mary Alcott’s most famous novel, Little Women, which premiered in 2019 .

And with Barbie, where the challenge of tell it in your own voice The story of a controversial American icon released more than 70 years ago, Gerwig has managed to break box office records for a film directed entirely by a woman.

But aside from the box office success – which is preceded by a massive advertising and marketing campaign that even colored the Google search engine pink -, criticism was mainly on Gerwig’s side.

“It is an unexpected pleasure to say that Greta Gerwig’s film, while still essentially a summer adventure comedy about the Barbie toy line, is far from the hard cash grab that many of us feared,” said the British film’s critic. Rob Collin.

“The satirical angle, which strikes a chord with older viewers rather than tweens, is exploited with gusto and mischief,” he adds.

Other female directors have directed films that have crossed the $1 billion mark, but are collaborating with others.

Frozen, the animated blockbuster and its sequel has grossed more than $1.4 billion at the box office and they were co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck.

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, brought in more than $1.1 billion in revenue.

But how did Gerwig’s career progress, from directing “zero budget” movies to Hollywood blockbuster billionaires?

Lady Bird

As her film Lady Bird tells us well, Gerwig is originally from the city of Sacramento, a medium-sized city that is the capital of the state of California.

There, Gerwig, who is now 40 years old, experienced an intense childhood and adolescence, mostly because of her diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, which she did not learn about until adulthood.

“As an adult, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.. Which means when I was younger my mum would sign me up for as many activities as possible to see if I would wear myself out and sit still,” she told Britain’s The Observer newspaper.

And in that search for activities, he found his first passion: writing.

After graduating from college with a degree in philosophy, along the way he met Joe Swanberg, an American film director known for making very low budget films in which improvisation abounded.

He co-wrote (and starred in) “Hannah Takes the Stairs” and “Nights and Weekends” with Swanberg. These films, despite not belonging to the Hollywood mainstream, allowed her to land a role that would make her famous: Florence Marr, in the 2010 film titled “Greenberg”.

The film, starring Ben Stiller, received good reviews from critics and caught the attention of studios.

But most of all, There she met who would become her future partner: Noah Baumbach, the film’s director.

And it was with Baumbach that he started writing again: she spearheaded “Frances Ha” (2012), a reflection on his New York college life in a tone of black comedy, and “Mistress America”​​( 2015), who also talks about those years at Barnard University, in the same city.

These films earned her recognition not only as an actress but also as a writer and producer, which led her to direct her first solo film: Lady Bird.

little women

“Lady Bird is about the girl I wanted to be”.

In this way, Gerwig explained to the BBC the background of what would become her first major success as a director (she had already co-directed “Nights and Weekends” with Joe Swanberg), “Lady Bird”.

The film about a teenager searching for her place in the world as she is about to graduate from high school at a Catholic school not only earned her a nomination for Best Director at the 2016 Oscars, but confirmed also that she could be a profitable director.

The movie, which had cost $10 million, eventually raised $78 million.

For this reason, Sony Pictures entrusted him with one of the most important projects of 2019 – the adaptation of the famous novel “Little Women” by the American writer Louise Mary Alcott.

For this film, Gerwig not only had a bigger budget (about $70 million), but also an enviable cast that included Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet and Florence Pugh.

“I feel very lucky and very grateful that this has been done, because it seems very unlikely: the studios don’t make historical movies about sisters based on books. It is very unusual for this to happen,” Gerwig told the BBC.

The movie was a success. It got a collection nearby US$200 million and five Oscar nominations that year.

However, it was also subject to controversy. Gerwig was not included — nor was any woman — in the Best Director category at the American Academy Awards.

Personalities such as Hillary Clinton expressed their dismay at the decision.

“I think Greta Gerwig should have been nominated. I really thought he deserved it because the movie is really well made,” he said.

Despite the transgression, Gerwig consolidated her career as a director, which led her to direct one of the mighty Warner Brothers’ mega productions: Barbie.

Again surrounded by a luxurious cast, this time the production was much more ambitious: a budget of almost 120 million dollars and the name of the most famous doll in the world in the title.

“It was not the adaptation of a novel. It was the version of a doll that is one of the icons of the 20th century,” the director told the British newspaper The Guardian.

And the idea seemed complicated enough, sticky enough, strange enough.so much so that I realized there could be something interesting to discover”.

With the euphoria over, Gerwig is preparing to direct a new version of a Disney classic, Snow White.